Case Studies

Our support for children at a school in the largest slum in Mumbai, Dharavi, continued this year. The school is dedicated to providing education and an opportunity for the overall development of local underprivileged children. Experian enabled the school to set up a computer lab, refurbish the classrooms, purchase play equipment and provide the basic infrastructure for pure drinking water and clean and hygienic sanitation facilities. Experian’s CEO, Don Robert, visited the school a year on looking at the difference Experian has been able to make to the school environment and the life of its students so far. Having heard about the school’s future plans to increase the student capacity to cater for more than 1,000 children, Don, on behalf of Experian, pledged continuing support including sponsorships for students and teachers. Employees from Experian India created ‘The Experian Marathon team’ and ran the Mumbai Marathon 2011 (42km) to raise funds whilst across the globe the wider Experian community, having read the inspiring story of the school’s progress on their local intranets, also made donations.

The very successful Real Dreams (Sonhos Reais) programme continued and grew this year. The aims of the programme are to help people to enjoy a healthy financial status, avoid indebtedness and stimulate interest in entrepreneurship through adult education sessions on financial literacy. It entails employee volunteers becoming skilled in delivering financial education training in various environments.

A second group of our employees received training this year and delivered modules of training to four new schools and families living in the second largest favela (slum) in São Paulo, the community of Paraisópolis.

Increasing the project’s reach further, the team within Serasa Experian is now working with CARE, a leading humanitarian organisation, which fights global poverty by helping people become more self sufficient. CARE Brazil has developed a school for young adults, set up specifically to develop entrepreneurship skills. Working together they are developing additional modules on entrepreneurship, adding website content to support the unit and working with the students who attend the school.

By developing their materials on a website, linked into the Serasa Experian site, they intend to expand the scope of activities to a wider number of volunteers in offices across Brazil.

A large amount of hard work and fundraising went into providing the charity, Room to Read, with the funds needed to build a school in Laos. This was a great achievement and employees in Australia felt proud to have given children in Laos the opportunity to attend a school that they are proud to attend.

Room to Read is a charity reaching out to communities in remote areas that don’t have the capacity to fund or improve their current schools. They focus on making the community accountable for managing the funds and creating the school themselves, sourcing the materials and building the school from the ground up. They are then responsible for keeping the school at a high standard. This process is seen as valuable experience for remote communities as many of the adults involved would not have had exposure to this sort of building exercise. Three staff members from the Melbourne office were lucky enough to go and see the great impact that Experian had made and were able to report back on the project in person to colleagues.

John Peace, Experian’s chairman, and a champion of community involvement, has been awarded ‘The Prince’s Ambassador Award’ by the UK charity Business in the Community (BITC).

This special award is in recognition of an individual whose leadership and commitment to responsible business has resulted in changes and improvements inside their own company and who has also inspired other organisations to take action.

The Prince of Wales gave a personal tribute to John and Experian in a five-minute long video, celebrating some of the many projects he has championed.

As a founding director, John has lead inspiring community initiatives within Experian for over 30 years. This achievement was also acknowledged when he was made High Sheriff of Nottingham, in March 2011.

John commented “I view Corporate Responsibility as integral to the way Experian does business and I am proud that so many of our people give their time to so many worthy causes. My involvement with Business in the Community together with my role as High Sheriff of Nottinghamshire, enables me to bring even greater focus to many of these projects.”

Providing a team building focus for the year via a major Christmas volunteering project has become a tradition for Experian’s UK HR team. This year they worked with charity Age UK to host Strictly Amazing, a nostalgic ballroom dancing event for older people building on the high profile of the popular UK television series ‘Strictly Come Dancing’. Volunteers decorated a local venue in 1940s style, greeting guests with an array of vintage cars, hosts in period dress, and appropriate music from the era. Stars from the TV series made a surprise appearance to perform a demonstration dance, meet the guests and pose for photos.

Experian Malaysia supported the charity RACTAR, which provides for orphans and poor girls in the region. The ‘Thought out of Box’ concept enables charities to sell goods via a ‘Box’ system. A local company provides boxed space for the display of goods and sales support in high street locations, enabling isolated charities to reach a market. Our funds supported the box rental and startup costs. Other than ‘Thought Out of the Box’ Experian’s involvement with RACTAR included the provision of IT equipment, a year’s subscription to Broadband and software to enable the charity to communicate and make and accept payments online. Our employees also sent story books and made several visits to the centre.

Experian has a partnership with Nottingham's City Council and its wider local government team, 'One Nottingham' that tackles inequality. As part of a programme of events to support the city and its people through the economic downturn, Experian suggested a series of high profile events to promote debt awareness.

With Experian acting as a main partner this Debt Awareness Campaign was initiated in 2009 and ran for a year, with events, information and practical support to help local people, as well as local businesses, through the recession.

In addition, Experian has been integral to the Council's Economic Resilience (ER) programme. Our Chairman, Sir John Peace is Chairman of the Economic Resilience Forum led by the Council's Chief Executive Jane Todd. The Forum is a unique partnership between the City Council, local businesses and the education sector and has developed a robust approach to focusing on the key issues for the city, leveraging data provided by Experian and other participants. Sir John commented: "We are pleased to be able to use our insight to help the Council prioritise around the key issues that will allow Nottingham to weather the recession successfully. As a major local employer, we are very much committed to doing whatever we can to support the community and help people cope with these challenging times."