Sovereign leverages people-power to support Buddy Day 2015

16 November 2015

Sovereign leverages people-power to support Buddy Day 2015

To amplify its support for Buddy Day 2015, New Zealand life insurer, Sovereign, started with its 700-strong employee base to successfully drive awareness for the annual Child Matters initiative.

Buddy Day raises awareness of child abuse and promotes safe and positive environments for children around New Zealand.

Buddy Day 2015 resulted in 2,000 adults adopting a Buddy, 3,000 primary school students designing Buddies and an estimated 20,000 conversations generated around New Zealand.

Sovereign’s Buddy Day engagement programme saw 700 Sovereign staff across three regions (Auckland, Wellington and Christchurch) educated about the impact of child abuse on New Zealand’s mental health statistics and the role everyone can play in protecting children.

Sovereign, Chief Officer of People and Community, Sharron Botica says everyday our teams are dealing with people who have significant issues as a result of their childhood. That’s why we’re involved in Buddy Day working towards the collective goal of supporting safe and positive environments for all children.

“Focusing our programme of support internally allowed us to leverage our most powerful asset; our people. By empowering our 700 employees to drive awareness and affect change within their own networks, we have the potential to raise awareness with almost a quarter of million people through social media which is incredibly powerful.[1]

“Now in the third year of our community partnership with Buddy Day, it’s exciting to see employees proactively getting involved, from team Buddy Design competitions, bake sales, fund raising to simply sharing information and images of Buddies through social media – there is a real sense of community within the team of coming together to support the cause.”

Child Matters, CEO, Anthea Simcock says as a social awareness campaign, Buddy Day, relies on power of people; through conversations, sharing and advocating the cause.

“For twenty years, Child Matters has worked in communities across the country as advocates for children. We sometimes come across people who believe child abuse is someone else’s problem. The issue is not too big to deal with."

“Through Buddy Day we want to quash this attitude and promote a message that reaches across socio-economic, cultural and political boundaries. To do this we need people to share and commit to this message and Sovereign is a fantastic example of an organisation that has actively and effectively engaged its staff to get behind the cause. They’re an example of an organisation that walks the talk.”

How Sovereign supports Buddy Day:
· 700 employees educated about Buddy Day and the impact of child abuse in New Zealand

· 80 Sovereign staff and guests attended Buddy Day breakfasts around the country

· Custom-designed invitations distributed by employees to local primary schools resulting in more than 3,000 primary school students participating

· 800 mini Buddies gifted by Sovereign staff to children in their network

ENDS

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