I have some sad news
today.
For those that have read
my previous blogpost, I Saw You in the Newspaper! , there has
been some development in the case of RumahAmpik. To recap, in my previous post
I mentioned that our Corporate Communications office was contacted by a man
called Mr. William concerning including his children into our After
School Project (ASP).
Today, after a meeting
with one of our board of directors, it was decided that RumahAmpik, at this
time, is not a feasible community to foster due to the need for trained mentors
with more experiences in dealing with problematic children as well as the fact
that we have three other communities in our care.
I had suspected for a
while that this would be the outcome of the case, but it does not change the
sadness in my heart. Perhaps when the ASP is more established, and the mentors
more well trained or rather if ASP has the ability to train the mentors that
are already dedicated to the project, we can attempt such a thing with
RumahAmpik. Till then, RumahAmpik has to stand and face this alone.
This situation, however,
has taught me a little something in balancing the good of the company with the
good of the community. CSR is never the priority of an organization, it is
simply an obligation they have to cater to in order to continue their
businesses as they please. In our case, the ASP has never been a priority in
time or funding from our organization. I understand that in this specific case,
ASP was truly unequipped to handle more problematic children under its care,
and had to cede the opportunity to a later date, if at all.
I
maintain, however, that in fulfilling an organizations corporate social
responsibility the end goal of doing ‘just enough’ just isn’t enough. One day,
people will look back and realize a
company has done the bare minimum for their community and then they will demand
compensation. One day, that organization they will be forced to realize that
while they can’t help them all, they can certainly try.
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