Getting streetwise about corporate responsibility

In Fahrenehit 451 author Ray Bradbury says the difference between the man who just cuts lawns and a real gardener is in the touching: “The lawn-cutter might just as well not have been there at all; the gardener will be there a lifetime.”
It’s that idea of legacy that drives the CR strategy at the multi-national insurance company Aviva.
Its 5-year Street to School programme is now coming to and end, but as David Schofield, global head of Corporate Responsibility at Aviva, points out: “We always wanted to see a sustainable legacy. In some areas laws and policies have been changed and we take great pride in what’s been achieved. We’ve unlocked some very big themes, such as retention in school and birth registration. At our launch in 2009 we set ourselves a target of helping 500,000 children by 2015. Today, working with our partners, we’ve helped over 930,000 children around the world through safe places, access to education and training, health care and through prevention.”
And while this innovative global partnership programme is coming to an end, Aviva will continue to advocate on behalf of street children through its work with the Consortium for Street Children engaging with the UN for the next two years. Its longstanding work in South East Asia will also continue for another two years.
The initiative began in 2009 when Norwich Union was rebranding as Aviva.
“The brand essence was to focus on recognition and that customers and employees were ‘more than just a number’,” recalls Schofield. “So given that ‘recognition’ was a key theme, looking at one of the most under recognised sections of society – street children – seemed appropriate. We also wanted to shine a spotlight on this unrecognised issue.”
Schofield describes the decision to tackle such a big social problem as ‘gutsy’. “A five year commitment was big news for a corporate back then, as was tackling an a very difficult and complex issue. It was also the first time we tackled a social problem in all our markets.”
Street to School focuses on programmes on the ground, impact on policy and advocacy for the future. “It was important to look at the cause of the problem and try to find expert partners in different markets. We needed to pioneer policy-influencing models and also be mindful of the long-term impact. Another crucial aspect is employee engagement. Employees feel proud of the work Aviva has done,” explains Schofield.
Indeed, 70% of employees in the UK say they feel proud to work for the company with 60,000 hours having been volunteered globally over the past five years and over £2m raised . “The programme captured the passion and talent of our people,” says Schofield.
The shared value approach offers a huge opportunity to drive awareness of the issue to our 30m customers worldwide, maintains Schofield. “Our initial ‘goal’ of reaching 500,000 people in five years, was audacious for us. But it also gave us the chance to build partnerships with experts and the opportunity to challenge each other.”
For example, half way through the initiative Aviva realised that though its aim was to champion the rights of street children, the organisation needed to be more of a “catalyst for change rather than trying to solve everything.” It understood that many small street child charities steered by individual entrepreneurs and practitioners were making a positive difference to vulnerable young lives. “So what emerged was that we needed to invest in research,” explains Schofield. “Once you have the data you can then target that important investment into work which makes a practical difference to the lives of many children.
“As a business we wouldn’t do anything without listening to the voice of the customer. We also realised, during the half way review, that we weren’t paying enough attention to the voices of the street children themselves. . As a result we commissioned ‘participatory’ research with our partners.”
The result has been four in depth studies with children and young people from Canada to India. Their voices are now influencing the programmes designed for them. Aviva also produced a toolkit to support other organisations to bring the voice of street children into their planning, monitoring and evaluation.
Schofield explains: “Beforehand, while we had great measurement and evaluation metrics – assured by PwC – we were only getting answers to questions we were asking. We saw that we weren’t the experts in the children’s lives, the children themselves were. So in this research, we asked ‘what’s the most valuable thing to you, as a child in this situation?’ and the response was ‘time with a consistent, trusted adult’. That enabled us to refresh our approach.”
On the legacy front, one of Street to School’s biggest achievements has been its work in Indonesia where it entered a cross-sector collaboration – though Schofield prefers the term ‘inclusive partnership’ – with global children’s charity Plan. Here Plan, supported by Aviva, worked with the government to improve the process of birth registration for street children. “We got to sit down with the Minister for Social Affairs and affected real change. You can only get these things to scale through the public sector,” insists Schofield. In Delhi, India, Save the Children’s educational model, developed through Street to School, has been taken on by the local government – mainstreaming the centre into a local school and rolling out this school-based model more widely.
Schofield emphasizes that the number one advocacy objective for Aviva is the inclusion of specific guidance on street children within the the UN Convention on the rights of the child. As part of its global Street to School programme, it has therefore been supporting the Consortium for Street Children (CSC) in its campaign for street children to be recognised in UN policy. As a result the United Nations Committee on the Rights of the Child has decided to develop a General Comment on Children in street situations. This means that the UN will issue specific authoritative guidance on street child rights – it will mean better policies, better practice and better results for street children worldwide.
The General Comment will be created over the next two years in consultation with street children themselves, NGOs, governments, businesses and international bodies. Aviva will remain a part of this process “because we’re committed to leaving a sustainable legacy”.
“We take pride in the scope of what we’ve achieved together with our partners over the last five years,” adds Schofield. “ We’ve established the International day for street children on 12th April every year and laws and policies have been changed.. It’s been fantastically humbling.”