Extending our wellness and social responsibility commitment to the wider community

Launched during the Holy Month of Ramadan 2023 with programmes rolling out throughout the year, Life Goals focuses on enhancing the financial resilience of blue-collar workers and recognising their significant contribution to the Dubai ecosystem.

As part of a strategic partnership between Dubai Holding and Visa, free and comprehensive financial literacy courses are provided with the support of volunteering employees from both organisations to over 9,000 blue-collar workers within the Group with the aim of enhancing their financial inclusion. The topics covered in the courses include budgeting, spending, saving, cards and fraud.

Life Goals also encompasses a series of activations across some of the Dubai Holding destinations and communities to reward workers and enhance their wellbeing, such as our business entities organising the delivery of Iftar and care parcels to workers’ accommodations and providing unique experience across a number of our parks and attractions.

The ‘She is’ campaign is part of our ongoing commitment to gender equality and is aligned to the Dubai Holding Gender Equity and Inclusion Framework, allowing us to stay focused on maintaining a sustainable environment that sparks human ambition and excellence.

Through the campaign’s creatives, the audience will learn about some of our diverse women, our business sectors as well as notice how our ‘unconscious bias’ about certain roles or professions may emerge only to later realise how important it is to ‘unlearn’ these biases.

The campaign launched its first phase in celebration of Emirati Women’s Day 2022, profiling leading Emirati female talents from across the Group with a series of employee communications, social media posts and a video that shed light on their roles while sharing the sources of their personal inspiration. The campaign’s second phase profiles more of our diverse female talents from across the Group while ensuring more sectors are included and the campaign’s main goal – helping lift unconscious bias – stays at the core.

Celebrating our Group’s female leaders is essential as they are true role models for present and future generations, and Dubai Holding’s diversity is instrumental to the development of our organisation and a better, more equitable society.

In proud support of UN Sustainable Development Goals on Clean Water and Sanitation; Sustainable Cities and Communities; and Climate Action, Dubai Holding has joined the new city-wide sustainability campaign Dubai Can.

An effort led by HH Sheikh Hamdan bin Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum, Crown Prince of Dubai and Chairman of the Dubai Executive Council, Dubai Can aims to minimise plastic waste by encouraging a refill culture instead of single-use plastic water bottles.

Through this campaign, Dubai Holding plays its part in fostering more sustainable practices by installing water dispensers and providing free access to safe drinking water at many of the Group’s leading destinations across Dubai, including Bluewaters, La Mer, The Beach, City Walk, Souk Madinat Jumeriah and Bay Avenue.

By partnering with Dubai Can, Dubai Holding reaffirms its commitment to being a socially and environmentally responsible business, dedicated to supporting Dubai Industrial Strategy 2030 and Dubai 2040 Urban Master Plan.

As part of our ongoing commitment to social responsibility and our vision of nurturing health and wellbeing ‘For the Good of Tomorrow’, we formed a year-long strategic partnership with the United Nations World Food Programme (UNWFP) in 2021 to support food security and nutrition for school children across the region.

Providing children with school meals gives them vital nutrition and encourages parents to prioritise education over home-based work or early marriages, allowing children to enhance their education and reach their potential. Building human capital prepares workforces for the skilled jobs of the future, which can drive growth and transform economies.

To celebrate the spirit of giving and togetherness in the Holy Month of Ramadan, Dubai Holding in partnership with UNWFP kicked off the first campaign, A Meal for a Brighter Tomorrow. By mobilising our people, businesses, destinations and many of our communities, we were able to achieve social impact at a large scale and encourage everyone across the UAE to donate to the cause and fund school meals via Dubai Holding’s sponsored home card on UNWFP’s ShareTheMeal app and website.

Dubai Holding successfully raised over 294,000 school meals from the joint school feeding campaign throughout Ramadan, which was 147% more than our original target of 200,000 meals. These school meals supported the ‘100 Million Meals’ campaign launched by His Highness Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum, Vice President and Prime Minister of UAE and Ruler of Dubai, the biggest food drive in the region.

Dubai Holding initiated in 2019 a long-term partnership with Dubai Health Authority (DHA) to support their Dubai Blood Donation Centre (DBDC) – contributing to an important mission for public health and social impact.

In order to enhance blood donations in Dubai and provide blood donors with added convenience, Dubai Holding donated a state-of-the-art blood donation bus to DBDC. The blood donation bus was inaugurated in an official ceremony during November 2020, travelling since then in weekly visits to reach people in different parts across the Emirate. Manufactured in the UAE, the blood donation bus is equipped with the latest smart technologies and requirements that comply with international standards.

In April 2021, Dubai Holding and DHA launched “The Perfect Gift is Saving Lives” three-month blood donation campaign for the communities and retail destinations of Dubai Holding. The blood donation bus conducted 26 visits across 16 locations, with more than 900 participants from 71 different nationalities. Additionally, the first joint mission between Dubai Holding and DHA was the extensive support to the “Be the Hero, Save Lives” blood donation joint initiative. Over the years, Dubai Holding has managed to secure more than 40,000 blood units to DBDC through several activations and campaigns.

Dubai Holding marks the latest step in its strategic partnership with Dubai Cares, part of Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum Global Initiatives, to improve children’s access to quality education in underprivileged communities around the world. As sponsors of the schools, Dubai Holding’s donation provided the engineering, building materials and skilled labour force to work on the land provided by the villages.

Since the initiatives inception, two new schools have been completed, one in Dhakka, Nepal and the other in Kaffrine 2 Sud in Senegal; both of which are operational and enrolling over 550 local children aged between 6 – 14 years old, with 20 teachers responsible for the classes.

Nationally, the total adult literacy rate in Nepal is just over 50% and in Senegal only 62% of men and 39% of women can read and write. The continued intiatives seeks to improve education access across these rural communities to increase literacy rates, ignight a virtuous cycle of literacy, opportunity and prosperity across the regions.

Dubai Holding is the strategic partner for the ‘Edge of Government Innovation Experience’ at the 2018 edition of the World Government Summit.

An interactive exhibit features case studies on select global innovations, offering visitors an immersive journey in high-impact solutions aimed at improving people’s lives around the world. These innovations will undergo a public vote, and the winner will be recognised by His Highness Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum, UAE Vice-President and Ruler of Dubai, with the Edge of Government Award.

Innovation is our guiding principle at Dubai Holding, we are committed to working with governments and global partners to promote innovation to solve the complex challenges of our time.

The Al Jalila Foundation is a global philanthropic organisation dedicated to transforming lives through medical education and research. Sharing Dubai Holding's vision of promoting health and wellness, the Foundation is the Strategic Wellness Partner for all of our wellness activities and initiatives.

With obesity recognised as one of the region’s priority health challenges, Dubai Holding has committed AED 5 million to the Foundation's Obesity Research Fund. As the official beneficiary of Dubai Holding’s wellness initiatives, the Foundation receives funding raised from high profile events including the annual Dubai Holding SkyRun and the Standard Chartered Dubai Marathon.

The UAE Water Aid campaign was launched by HH Sheikh Mohammed Bin Rashid Al Maktoum, Vice-President and Prime Minister of the UAE and Ruler of Dubai, to ensure that five million people around the world have access to a regular supply of safe water.

Dubai Holding’s contribution of AED 5 million helps support 200,000 people in developing countries, to build wells, install pumps, and provide water purification equipment where it is needed most.

TECOM Group works with Dubai Cares in supporting the development of Karameesh Kindergarten, a charitable pre-school established in Rafah, southern Gaza serving disadvantaged children in the community. Like many schools in the region, Karameesh suffered from neglected interior and exterior building structure, a lack of educational materials and play equipment, and inadequate teaching quality.

Through continued financial support, the Adopt a School programme has worked to provide a safe and stimulating environment, teacher training programmes, learning and play equipment, as well as out-of-school activities for the children and their caregivers.