AVBOB Integrated Annual Report 2018

A legendary humanitarian once wrote, ‘ The purpose of human life is to serve, and to show compassion and the will to help others. ’ These words perfectly capture the AVBOB ethos. Capital City Business Chamber (CCBC) Business of the Year (2016) – Large Enterprise Award Winner of Icon Brands Survey. Financial: Funeral Cover Category Award (2016/2017) Second place – SARA REWARD PROJECT OF THE YEAR (2017) IMPUMELELO TOP EMPOWERED ORGANISATION (2017) The following Ask Afrika Orange Index Service Excellence Awards: Industry winner in the Long-term Insurance Industry category (2017/2018) Winner of the Funeral/Burial Service Industry category (2017/2018) Received certification as a Top Employer from the Top Employers Institute (2017) Third place in the 19th Annual Sunday Times Top Brands Awards – Consumer category: Long-term Insurance (2017) Winner of the Funeral Cover category in the Icon Brands Survey (2017/2018) Winner of the Financial Services: Funeral Cover category in the Ask Afrika Kasi Star Brands Survey (2018) Awards and honours R2 500 was awarded to the first-prize poems in all 11 language categories, at a prestigious gala evening held in June 2018. A 100-poem print anthology was created from the website entries, including specially commissioned poems from SA’s top poets. The 100th poem, fittingly, was delivered in the Khoisan language, N ǀ uu, from the words of Ouma Katriena Esau, one of the last four surviving speakers of this dialect. The inspiration for the AVBOB Poetry Competition came from people’s inability to express their loss in the face of bereavement. One of the first things that mourners request from AVBOB is assistance with writing a funeral letter. Somehow poetry provides the perfect vehicle to express that loss. This demonstrates, once again, AVBOB’s commitment to all South Africans. Far-sighted and visionary, AVBOB has always been.We’re a beautiful work in progress, but we’ve already been hailed in the public space as a model for transformation. In 2017, AVBOB won awards in the Ask Africa Icon Brands, Kasi Brands and Sunday Times Top Brands Awards surveys, and also achieved Top Employers South African certification from the global Top Employers Institute. AVBOB was also recognised by the Impumelelo Top Empowerment publication as one of South Africa’s most transformed organisations and is rated as a Level 2 B-BBEE contributor.These awards testify to AVBOB’s ongoing drive towards transformation, and excellence in both product and service. It’s rare to find an organisation that has weathered change so successfully, and yet has managed to remain true to its core identity. AVBOB is 100 years young, and is determined to remain relevant and responsive to change and transformation. That’s why our workforce, from the top down, is a diverse, inclusive community subscribing to our deep commitment to caring for all – not one privileged group at the expense of the others. AVBOB serves as the bearer of an institutional memory which has been refined for over a century. HH van Rooijen’s words echo to this day: ‘Look after the people.’ We still do this at every level, making a difference and uplifting our people daily. We see our caretaking creed as something that goes far beyond the concrete and material, to matters of the spirit. AVBOB has always believed in the importance of the arts in society, as a form of social upliftment. That’s why AVBOB has been a proud sponsor of the Mzansi Youth Choir since 2013. We do this by inspiring our staff to render a service to all policyholders that is steeped in sympathy and always upholds their dignity. We have stood proudly in the service of South African families for a century. This is our story, told over time, with a narrative thread that runs all the way back to that post-war world of devastation, and forwards to the future. AVBOB has grown from saving a people, to serving a nation. And like the ancient baobab tree that was chosen as AVBOB’s centenary symbol, AVBOB intends to stand strong for our people – our family – for the next 100 years. Because, with AVBOB, family comes first. Always. 7