Whether it is providing meaningful employment for people with special needs or celebrating the creative abilities of artists with autism, UOB has been giving back to the community by supporting autism-related causes.
Since October 2013, UOB has been collaborating with the Autism Resource Centre (ARC) to offer career opportunities for people with autism.
Currently, people with autism represent 30 per cent of all employees at the UOB Scan Hub, which digitises documents for easy retrieval. To enable people with autism to work at the centre, UOB has redesigned work processes, modified its office environment and developed structured training programmes.
Ms Denise Phua, president of ARC and mayor of Central Singapore District, says: “ARC is delighted to collaborate with a leading financial institution such as UOB to help people with special needs become contributing and productive members of our society. I look forward to seeing more companies following UOB’s footsteps to become inclusive employers.”
The bank has also partnered Pathlight School, Singapore’s first autism-focused school to launch an art exhibition titled Sky Deep, which ran from Feb 23 to March 27, 2016. The show allows viewers to obtain glimpses of the world of the young artists who have captured in great detail the environment and community they live in. Proceeds from the sales of the paintings went to Pathlight School and the artists.
Geraldine Martha Schubert, the Silver Award winner for the 2015 UOB Painting of the Year Singapore, also conducted an art workshop for Pathlight students.
“The students’ sincerity and enthusiasm touched me. I am very happy that I took up the offer to facilitate the Pathlight workshop and I would gladly do it again,” she says.
Here are some of the paintings by the Pathlight students:
Artist: Amelia Tan Kiat Qi
Name of painting: Pair of Cranes
Medium: Chinese ink on rice paper
Description: Inspired by the elegance of cranes, Amelia’s rendering of this pair of cranes shows the fluidity of her brush strokes using Chinese ink painting.
Artist: Hairil Hady Bin Shohri Omar
Name of painting: Whale Family
Medium: Acrylic on canvas
Description: Hairil enjoys creating a wide variety of vibrant characters which range from small cartoons to large magical creatures.
