Banyan Tree Partners With HFH China To Raise Funds For 100 Homes In Guangdong And Philippines
Singapore Resort and Spa Developer Will Match Donations From Sale Of Lifelong Memberships To Its Global Destination Club
HONG KONG, 7th May 2010: Singapore-listed premium resort, hotel and spa developer Banyan Tree unveiled a fundraising partnership with Habitat for Humanity China at a cocktail party in Hong Kong recently.
(From left) Marina Kleiman, Banyan Tree Private Collection’s managing director; Claire Chiang, senior vice-president, Banyan Tree; Margie Moran Floirendo, co-chair of HFH Philippines’ Friends of Habitat and Catherine Peredes Maceda, member of HFH Philippines’ national board.
The year-long partnership aims to raise US1 million to build a total of 100 homes in Guangdong, China and in the Pasig River project in the Philippines.
Fund-raising initiatives include having the Banyan Tree Private Collection, a global destination club under Banyan Tree, donate US10,000 from each US140,000-exclusive lifelong membership it sells. Banyan Tree will also match the donation with an additional US10,000. Other fund-raising events will be organized by Banyan Tree throughout the year.
In Guangdong, HFH China aims to build at least 150 housing units for low-income families in a partnership with the local government in Qujiang district, Shaoguan municipality. Habitat also expects to improve the villagers’ access to improved water and sanitary sources. More than 15,800 families in Qujiang live in houses made with mud bricks or earthen walls without sanitation facilities and lacking proper ventilation. The residents also face the danger of having their houses collapse on them and their livestock during heavy storms and floods.
Over in the Philippines, donations will benefit the Pasig River rehabilitation project in the Philippines. As part of the seven-year, multi-partner project, HFH Philippines is leading the construction of houses for informal riverbank settlers who have been allocated homes on a resettlement site in Calauan municipality, Laguna province, southeast of Metro Manila. Under the Pasig River project, Habitat aims to serve 40,000 families with safe and permanent housing between 2011 and 2015.
“Banyan Tree has long been committed to being an agent of social and economic development through responsible tourism. Habitat’s message that ‘hope starts at home’ deeply resonates with BTPC and our commitment to corporate social responsibility and offer of a home away from home to our members and guests,” said Marina Kleiman, Banyan Tree Private Collection’s managing director.
Managed by the Banyan Tree group, Banyan Tree Private Collection owns villas in Phuket, Thailand; Bali and Bintan, Indonesia; Ringha in Yunnan, China; Grasse, France; Tuscany, Italy and Seychelles in addition to the luxury apartments in London, England and Kyoto, Japan.