Canon’s ‘Follow Your Happiness’ campaign completes community activities involving 300 participations within one year

One year after launching its ‘Follow Your Happiness’ employee community engagement programme, Canon Middle East (CME) and Canon Central and North Africa have announced the phenomenal success the award-winning programme has achieved. With a total of 21 community activities involving over 300 participations in 2017, ‘Follow Your Happiness’ engaged Canon’s own employees by giving them the opportunity to become active members within their own work environment as well as the larger community.

The ‘Follow You Happiness’ campaign is driven by three pillars: Future, Youth and Happiness. Within each pillar there are a series of projects and initiatives for Canon’s employees to participate in to drive the campaign. Each time an employee participated in any initiative within the three pillars, Canon donated a considerable amount for every employee participation. The aggregated final amounts of these engagements will now be donated to two non-governmental organisations in the Middle East and Central and North Africa regions.

Some of the community initiatives that were part of the ‘Follow Your Happiness’ programmes revolved around education, social welfare, culture, community involvement, environmental projects, and several other volunteering opportunities. These initiatives culminated in Canon receiving the Creative Innovator Awards for 2017 in the 'Best Innovation - Public good' category. Held annually, the awards promote the spirit of innovation and recognise the people and companies that are driving it in the UAE across various verticals. The award is an affirmation of Canon’s solid commitment to it corporate philosophy of ‘Kyosei,’ which means living and working together for the common good, especially in the communities in which it operates.

“At Canon we always work to make a positive difference in our community and with the launch of ‘Follow Your Happiness’ we were involving our employees so they themselves can drive the community initiatives forward. These pillars create an environment whereby Canon’s employees are given the tools, as well as the physical and intellectual space to grow, become more optimistic about their future, use and develop their creativity, and actively participate within society. Today we have achieved so much together within each pillar, and we are all honoured that our work will be to be supporting two great causes in our region.  The award is also a recognition of the efforts and long hours our employees have invested in helping others and spreading happiness outward to the community,” said Mai Youssef, Corporate Communications & Marketing Services Director, Middle East & Africa- ‎Canon Middle East.

Canon also announced the Rashid Centre for Disabled as the non-governmental entity which will be receiving half of the aggregated funds of the ‘Follow Your Happiness’ campaign for the Middle East, with the Central and North African entity as well to be announced and receive the donations in April.

“The Rashid Centre for Disabled provides high-level education and therapy services to children with special needs, and we welcome members of the community and organisations to also be involved with us, whether through contributions or volunteering. We are grateful for Canon’s contribution which we believe will further add to developing the centre’s services to the children as well as supporting our cause of spreading awareness about disability issues within our region,” said Mariam Othman, Co-founder and Director – Rashid Centre for Disabled.

 “Last year we were inspired by the ‘Year of Giving’ to launch the ‘Follow you Happiness’ campaign, and this year with the announcement of the ‘Year of Zayed’ as well as the UAE’s focus on happiness as a matter of national policy, Canon is eager to continue to be one of the global organisations making a positive, and happy contribution on a local level. We value the UAE’s initiatives to promote happiness across the community, especially since happiness is a recurring theme within our employee community engagement programme, and we encourage our teams to continue engaging in creating a supportive and happy environment for others.”

“I look forward to continuing this stream of community support in 2018, as we have already started the year with a on mission to fundraise for building two schools across the Middle East and Central and North African regions.” added Mai.