#WeGiveWhereWeLive

By Enda Cunnane , Senior Director of Machine Intelligence at TELUS International AI Data Solutions

At TELUS International, we understand the relationship between the success of our company and the well-being of the communities where we live, work and serve. We know that our team members want to be part of something bigger. When given the opportunity to make a meaningful difference in their own communities, our proud team members reward us with their ongoing commitment and loyalty.

Since 2007, TELUS International and our team members have impacted the lives of more than a million people across the globe through our volunteer activities and charitable giving, including Community Board donations. While Telus International has only recently acquired our Ballina operation, we have also been thrilled to adopt TELUS International’s #WeGiveWhereWeLive philosophy as it fits well with our long history of volunteerism in Ballina.

For more than 10 years, our team in Ballina has supported our Time To Read initiative, where we support the literacy skills of young people at the local Scoil íosa. We have found this initiative to be really valuable for our team members as it connects them with children from the local community and encourages them to read together. Whether this is by accident or by design, we have discovered that many team members who volunteer to support the children have become strong team leaders and some have progressed to senior management and director positions in our organization.

More recently, we have got involved in supporting a number of local sporting organizations. For example, we recently sponsored Telus Salmon Run, a triathlon with the aim of encouraging people to take part in an important local event as part of the Ballina Salmon festival. We worked closely with Liquid motion triathlon club on this initiative and they mentioned that in addition to the financial support, there were most grateful for the incredible support provided by our team members in volunteering to help with registration and the running of the event on the day.?

As over 70% of our team members are women, one of the highlights of the event was the high participation levels of females in this endurance event. As we move forward, we would like to support women’s sports in the locality and we have made a start on this by sponsoring Ballina town women and girls' soccer teams. We look forward to expanding our sponsorship of women’s sports in the future.?

On a wider note, we also tap into TELUS International Ireland giving activities and over the course of the past two years, regional TELUS International team members have volunteered more than 7,000 hours and have donated more than $110,000 to charities in Ireland through various fundraising events and company donations. On a personal level, I am particularly proud to be part of an organization that values giving back to the community and I believe this is something that all our team members can identify with and will help us integrate with the larger organization and its goals.