"A service dog literally changes the life of its user. Visually impaired persons are assisted in a variety of ways by their dog, such as picking up keys, fetching the person's wallet to even inserting a credit card in an ATM. We know that this campaign will achieve our objective to improved quality of life of a visually impaired person" said Ms. Angela Tabone, Managing Director of Citadel Insurance plc during the launch of the Company's Corporate Social Responsibility campaign aimed to raise funds to cover the costs of training a service dog.
As part of its Corporate Social Responsibility initiatives for 2014, entitled "Giving to Life, it feels good", Citadel Insurance, organized an art competition in aid of The Service Dogs Malta Foundation, an NGO which provides trained service dogs for Maltese visually impaired, deaf, disabled and autistic persons. The competition, with the theme "Our Planet in Motion" was open for children of Citadel's customers aged between 5 to 16 years. This initiative is in line with Citadel's philosophy to promote ethic responsibility towards society and the environment. As many as sixty children entered the competition and twelve artworks were selected by four local artists. These artworks have been published in Citadel's 2015 calendar which will be offered to the public who donate Eur4.66 towards funding Bailey's training.
Our aim is to assist The Service Dogs Malta Foundation collect up to €15,000 to fund Bailey's training. Ms. Tabone said that although Citadel Insurance is continuously involved in Corporate Social Responsibility campaigns, this campaign is one they hold at heart because of the positive effect it will have in someone's life. Currently there are a number of persons waiting for an opportunity to become independently mobile. It is not easy for a blind person to fund a service dog, which after eight years, has to be replaced with a younger dog.
"We created enthusiasm from the onset of this initiative and succeed to do that by involving our customers, corporate clients and service providers. Especially, the children who positively responded to our call to give up some free time to paint for Bailey's training program. I wish to thank all the collaborating companies who generously offered their support and the children for their participation" concluded Ms. Tabone.
We are certain that the general public will also join this worthy cause by sending their donation of €4.66 by SMS on 50617905 with their name and email address. The donation entitles the donor to collect the 2015 calendar created by the children specially for this campaign. All donations received will be presented to the Malta Service Dog Foundation who will use the funds to pay for Bailey to become a service dog.
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Citadel Insurance p.l.c. is a company authorised to carry on general and long term business of insurance and is regulated by the Malta Financial Services Authority.