Thai Life Insurance and Mae Joe University Boost Local Economies Bring Happiness
Thai Life Insurance Public Company Limited
The “Thai Life Insurance and Mae Jo University Boost Local Economies to Bring Happiness” project was carried out in collaboration with Mae Jo University, a leading university for agriculture in Northern Thailand. Under the project, the sales leaders of Thai Life Insurance in the area work together with the villagers of Rong Bong Village.
INTRODUCTION
The “Thai Life Insurance and Mae Jo University Boost Local Economies to Bring Happiness” project was carried out in collaboration with Mae Jo University, a leading university for agriculture in Northern Thailand. The project was carried out in coordination with a new generation of leaders in the Rong Bong Village of Mae Suay district in Chiang Rai, who are determined to bring development to their communities. Under the project, the sales leaders of Thai Life Insurance in the area work together with the villagers of Rong Bong Village. The project’s aim is to create a strong community who has the ability to implement ideas from the project to better their quality of life. This community will in turn transfer the knowledge they have gained to other communities. The aim here is to encourage the communities to be self reliant.
FRAMEWORK AND STRATEGY
To implement “Thai Life Insurance and Mae Jo University Boost Local Economies to Bring Happiness”, the company has integrated operations with many sectors and parties. Working with Mae Jo University, the company’s CSR Department specify the format of activities each year. From there, the local volunteer life insurance representatives will be tasked with coordinating with community leaders and villagers, inviting them to participate in activities and at the same time educating them on the importance and benefits of life insurance and savings in various forms.The company pays for the expenses of the activities and encourages its staff to volunteer in the activities. Mae Jo University supports the project by providing experts in each area of knowledge giving training and conducting workshops for villagers growing longans as a cash crop.
Strategies to integrate the CSR project and the company’s core business
The overall objective of the project is to create a model community in improving the quality of life for the communities. This is in line with the central tenet of business operations to look after life and help to upgrade development of quality of life, in the framework of the CSR master plan. In this, the company initiated the project, provided the budget and brought in volunteers, who were life insurance representatives in the area to participate in the activities.
Uniqueness of the approach
The company’s method is to use volunteer life insurance representatives in the local area who are qualified and have a genuine spirit of volunteerism, as well as an understanding of implementing CSR activities. They represent the company in mentoring and supervising the participants to achieve the specified targets.
ACHIEVEMENT AND IMPACT
The company has targeted a certain number of households for the project. Success in improving the status of households is measured by the number of villagers participating in the activities. The minimum participation of community members should be 30 percent of the total population in the community. The response to the project is satisfactory, where it was found that no less than 70 percent of the community members participated.The project has succeeded in the following areas:
- Increase the knowledge on growing logans, which is the main cash crop in the village.
- Increase knowledge on concepts of organic farming, including the benefits and impact of organic farming.
- Teaching villagers to create a supplementary income for their families.
- Promoting increased yields with a view of setting up a small industry in the community.
FUTURE DIRECTION
The company is determined that the project should take up a role in helping the lives of villagers which goes beyond just food production. The project also aims to improve the overall economic status of the communities by growing mushrooms as a supplementary crop as well as improving marketing and distribution of their products and exercising economies of scale.
Thai Life Insurance PLC is the first life insurance company in Thailand which was established over 75 years ago. Thai Life Insurance realizes the importance of being focused in its business and has defined its vision and obligations of its business operations. This includes good operating principles with clear supervision. Besides practices determined by law, the company gives priority to good corporate governance to promote security and transparency, and to create confidence for policyholders, shareholders and other stakeholders.
