Inline with its commitment towards the development of community, education and environment as written in the Malakoff Community Partnerships (MCP), Malakoff, together with a group of final year Persuasive Communications students of School of Communication from Universiti Sains Malaysia (USM), organized a seminar entitled, “The Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) Efforts by University for the Environment”.

The group of students that called themselves New Millennium Graduates, or NEMGRADS in short, organizes social campaign on a annual basis to benefit society through various awareness and fundraising activities. This year, NEMGRADS is organizing an environmental awareness project emphasizing on preserving the environment as well as to create awareness related to university Corporate Social Responsibility.

The seminar, officiated by Deputy Secretary General (Green Technology and Water), Ministry of Energy, Green Technology and Water, Yang Berbahagia Datuk Nor Azmal Mohd Nazir, aimed to discuss the importance of universities’ contribution to the environment, to examine the development of universities’ efforts in conserving the environment and to identify the future direction of CSR programs in universities and to find ways to improve it in the future.

According to Dr Jamilah Hj Ahmad, NEMGRADS Project advisor, the participants of the seminar were students from 16 institutions of higher learning from all over Malaysia and a student from a university in Indonesia. A total of 250 students attended the seminar, inclusive of 16 students who presented their papers to the floor in this 2-day event.

Speaking to Dr Jamilah later on Malakoff’s efforts to become a champion in CSR, she pointed out that the MCP video showed that Malakoff has done so many good deeds and she applauded Malakoff for its CSR efforts. However, she added that Malakoff shouldn’t have laid low with its previous CSR efforts. She said that being high profile with events under the MCP umbrella is important in order to let people know about the good deeds that had been undertaken by Malakoff and gives opportunity for other organizations to learn from the efforts made by Malakoff. She added that the publicity given on MCP might attract people with relevant ideas to come forward and present their ideas that Malakoff might find suitable to develop and add under MCP.

For this seminar, Malakoff presented NEMGRADS with a cheque of RM52,000 for the sponsorship of the event. Dr Jamilah and the organizing committee of NEMGRADS 2010 extended their utmost gratitude for Malakoff’s contribution towards the event and hoped to have more collaboration with Malakoff in its future events.