Humanitarian rocker to review local CSR initiatives before kicking off St Patrick’s Day weekend celebrations in Dubai
Sir Bob Geldof will be appearing live in concert at the Irish Village on Thursday evening 15th March, to launch St. Patrick’s Day weekend celebrations in Dubai. The legendary Irish rocker will be performing some of his classic hits such as ‘I don’t like Mondays’ and ‘Rat trap’ as well as some of his latest material.
Speaking at a press conference today (Wednesday 14 March) in Dubai, Sir Bob thanked Transguard Group – for bringing him to the UAE for the seventh year running and spoke of his new album, How To Compose Popular Songs That Will Sell.
Last year Sir Bob Geldof performed to over 2,000 fans at the Irish Village, the highlight of the venue's annual three-day festival celebrating St Patrick, the patron saint of Ireland.
However as one of the world’s best-known and indeed best-loved humanitarians, Sir Bob also took some time out from rehearsing to recognise a number of CSR (corporate social responsibility) initiatives, being launched by Dubai-based Transguard Group and loyalty programme operator Air Miles.
The Transguard Group, the company responsible for organising the concert, is actively engaged in three areas of CSR, namely employee welfare, sustainability and international charity. Sir Bob planned to visit one of its state-of-the-art employee accommodation centres and hand out certificates to a select group of employees who out of a total workforce of 18,000 staff have excelled in areas such as energy-saving and learning achieving advanced levels of English literacy.
Education is a key area of Transguard’s CSR policy, the company funds libraries for its staff and even arranges English language examinations to enhance career potential.
In terms of sustainability, Transguard has a firm commitment to reduce its carbon emissions by over 10% equivalent to taking 286 cars off the road for a whole year.
“In addition, the company has installed 3,750 water-saving devices throughout its offices and accommodation centres and is saving enough water to fill an Olympic-sized swimming pool every week. All-in-all, Transguard is saving $3 million annually on its utility bills,” said Mark Povey, Communications Director at Transguard Group.
In terms of its international charity Transguard supports Christel House India – a school for underprivileged children in Bangalore which it supports financially and thru a management trainee programme for graduating students.
Keeping very much in tune with charitable sentiment, Air Miles Middle East launched its month-long ‘Lend a Mile’ campaign. The scheme involves motivating any or all of the loyalty programme’s 1.2 million Middle East members to donate their personal Air Miles to any Air Miles recognised charity.
Those that do so will have their donations doubled courtesy of Air Miles until 15 April 2012. In addition anyone donating during this period will have the chance of winning 100,000 Air Miles, in a special draw.
Helen Deiki, Air Miles Middle East’s Marketing Manager, said: “As an organisation, we have been consistently strengthening our offering across the UAE, Qatar and Bahrain and we’re now stepping up our CSR programme, with the month-long ‘Lend a Mile’ campaign the first of a number of CSR announcements we have in the pipeline.
“We’re honoured to have a public figure of the stature of Sir Bob Geldof here today as we launch this charity drive which we are sure will translate into donations, in the form of Air Miles, flooding in through our website and call centre.”
For more information log on to www.airmilesme.com or www.transguardgroup.com.
Notes to the editors:
About the Transguard Group
The Transguard Group, an Emirates Group company, was established in 2001 and is now the leading security services provider in the region. The group has diversified significantly and has become an international business support services conglomerate leading in the fields of facilities management, cash management, security, training, consultancy, airport services and event management. The group has full-time staff in excess of 18,000 and an experienced international management team. The group is committed to further consolidating market-leading positions while continuing a policy of sustained, planned growth and development. For more details please visit www.transguardgroup.com.
About Air Miles Middle East
- Air Miles Middle East operates throughout the UAE, Qatar and Bahrain and its 1.2 million active members can collect Air Miles at over 120 market-leading companies, including HSBC, Spinneys, Lamcy Plaza and Damas.
- AMME is the region’s largest loyalty programme and managed by Rewards Management Middle East, which is 60 per cent owned by Aimia, a global leader in loyalty management.
- AMME has delivered over 760,000 rewarding experiences to its members since launching in 2001
- If you placed the 1.7 million issued air miles cards in the region side by side they would stretch from Dubai to Abu Dhabi (approximately 120km) AMME employs over 20 nationalities, helping the organisation truly understand its multi-cultural membership
- Air Miles outlets are present in each of the top ten UAE malls
- The number of Air Miles members is almost equal to the current population of Dubai
- There are an average of 93 million Air Miles redeemed monthly by members on Flight Rewards, which is the distance from the earth to the sun
Media contact for Transguard and Sir Bob Geldoff
Josse Dulka
Senior Account Executive
Shamal Marketing Communications
Dubai Media City, UAE
Tel: +971 4 365 2711
Cell: +971 50 654 0229
Email: josse@smc-pr.com
Media contact for Air Miles
Ian Hainey at IHC
+971 50 466 1368
ian@ih-c.com