Aristocrat highlighted its giving spirit at the company’s annual Christmas party at Morpheus in Macau.
Aristocrat’s annual Christmas party in Macau served as a point of connection with customers and friends, but also shone as an occasion to help those less fortunate.
A “giving tree” to collect gifts and a lucky-draw charity held during the event showcased the company’s strong bonds with the ECF Orphanage and the Fuhong Society of Macau.
“A big part of what we believe in at Aristocrat is corporate social responsibility,” said Lloyd Robson, Aristocrat Sales & Business Development Director – Asia Pacific.
“There’s a couple of organizations here tonight that we’re supporting. The first one, ECF Orphanage, is the role you see everybody playing here today in bringing some stationery and some gifts and toys that are sitting under the giving tree. Robson noted that Aristocrat employees and associates brought presents for orphaned children under ECF Orphanage’s care: the organization helps kids between the ages of five and 18 who are orphaned or whose parents are not able to give full-time care.
“The second organization we’re supporting is the Fuhong Society, an organization which helps the development and occupational therapy of some of the people with disabilities in town,” Robson continued. “It’s an organization we’ve been backing for a very long time.”
Jennifer Chau, Director of the Fuhong Society of Macau, explained the broad activities the organization partakes in while helping people with intellectual disabilities and mental illness in rehabilitation.
“We have a vocational training center and we have a daycare center for severe level disabilities,” Chau said. “We also have residential service, a 24-hour service for those with disabilities who don’t have their parents or whose parents are not capable of helping them. Maybe their parents have passed away so the disabled will stay in our residential service.”
Fuhong Society of Macau also develops “the so-called Social Enterprise. In order to provide more jobs for our people with disabilities, we have, for example, happy laundry, happy market, which is selling second hand clothing, and also happy art, where we provide music therapy, drama therapy and also dancing,” with the goal of improving the social skills of the disabled, Chau added.
Fuhong Society uses a rainbow flower logo, developed by a child with autism, to brand those products sold by the organization, with all earnings used for charitable purposes. The products can be found in different corner stands located all over Macau.
While Aristocrat continues to support a number of local charities, the company itself continues to go from strength to strength with Robson stating his eagerness to see what 2020 holds.
“It has been a very interesting year from a macro perspective,” he said. “Obviously we had challenges in Hong Kong, GGR has been a little bit light from a market perspective, but that said, there has been continued investment in a lot of expansionary activity from just about all the big organizations in town, which is a very clear sign of confidence in what this market is and can be in the future.
“And from an infrastructure perspective we had the Hong Kong-Zhuhai-Macau Bridge open in 2018, the light rail opened late 2019 and for Macau the great question is, what happens next in 2020?”
