UBS Investment Bank
UBS is the world's largest wealth manager, a top-tier investment bank, a leading global asset manager, and the market leader in Swiss retail and commercial banking. UBS is present in all major financial centers worldwide. It employs over 80,000 people and operates in more than 50 countries.
AMREF and UBS
UBS has partnered with AMREF for the past five years and is committed to supporting better health in Africa.
One of the initiatives UBS supports is the MEMA Kwa Vijana sexual health education project in the Mwanza region of Tanzania, which targets 500,000 school children aged 12-19. Another is AMREF’s malaria project in the Afar region of Ethiopia which benefited from employee donations from UBS’s Children’s Seasonal Party in 2005.
In addition to financial assistance, AMREF UK’s fundraising team is involved in mentoring relationships with the client services team at UBS Wealth Management.
"UBS’ Community Affairs programme focuses on educational initiatives that train the trainers and widen access to education. The firm supports AMREF on projects that provide African communities with the knowledge and means to protect their health. Teaching local people to help their communities and educate others not only saves lives but it also creates employment prospects for the trainers.
"Employees at UBS are so supportive of AMREF’s work that some have chosen to run marathons on AMREF’s behalf. In particular, staff members are impressed by AMREF’s capacity to communicate with community leaders and patients themselves, so that projects are implemented from within the community. This adds credibility to the new hygiene practices and facilitates the sustainability of AMREF’s excellent, life saving educational work."
Patsy Francis, Director, Corporate Responsibility and Community Affairs
Employee involvement
UBS employees Adam Williams and Bamidele Aly climbed Kilimanjaro in 2005 to raise money for AMREF. They then visited an AMREF health project in the Maasai village of Kajiado in Kenya. Here they were able to meet some of the people who had benefited from AMREF’s life saving work and see the impact of their own fundraising efforts.
“The AMREF Kilimanjaro Challenge was one of the most physically and mentally demanding projects we have ever undertaken,” said Adam, “but visiting the community which will benefit from the money we raised made it all worthwhile,” Adam Williams
Click here if you would like to take part in an AMREF African Challenge and visit an AMREF project