In September, against the backdrop of the Hunter Valley Wine Country, Glencore Coal celebrated its community partners. The special night was for all the organisations they partner with across NSW and Queensland to support the communities that they operate in.

Since 2006, Glencore has invested $115 million in partnerships across NSW and Queensland. In 2023 alone, $6 million was invested into education, health, on local need projects and environmental projects.

Glencore’s Chief Executive Officer Ian Cribb said they are very proud of the work they do and the contributions they make.

“Our company purpose is to responsibly source the commodities that advance everyday life.

“Part of being a responsible operator is our commitment to support the communities that host our operations. We do so by building partnerships that can deliver improvements to education, health, environment, Indigenous initiatives and other locally identified community projects.

“We also know that the cost-of-living crisis has become more of a focus.

“A growing number of individuals have experienced financial and personal stress due to inflation, interest rate rises, and the escalating housing availability crisis. In times of need, these people turn to community-minded services and organisations, many of whom we are proud to partner with,” said Ian.

The job of looking after those partnerships is that of Social Performance Manager Craig Strudwick and Community Relations Coordinator Tracey Snedden.

“The focus of our investment and the partnerships we have, is on the positive outcomes we can help bring about for our communities,” said Craig.

“We also have a partnership mindset in our community investment program.

“Having this partnership approach to our community investment helps us to develop a keen understanding of what drives our partners and their challenges, to get a genuine appreciation of how they go about making a positive difference, and, most importantly, to understand where and how we can add value, and how we can help them make a difference.”

At this year’s community partnerships celebration, the spotlight was on two of the community organisations supported by Glencore – Lifeline in the Hunter Region of NSW and Royal Far West in Central Queensland.

Lifeline is a community organisation that reaches to every corner of Australia, and an organisation everyone has heard about.

They provide 24 hour crisis support and suicide prevention services to anyone who needs it. Lifeline has 41 centres with 10,000 volunteers including 3,500 Crisis Supporters and 1,000 employees.

Lifeline’s telephone, text and online crisis support services receive over 1 million contacts a year.

Glencore announced a more than $100,000 partnership with Lifeline Hunter in 2022 that saw an additional 30 Crisis Supporters deployed with each receiving 150 hours of training through workshops, role plays, mentoring and individual supervision of their initial shifts.

“Partnering with organisations like Glencore is critical in Lifeline making sure that we are there to meet people who call us at any time of the day or night. By training additional Crisis Supporters, we will make sure that no-one has to face their darkest moments alone,” said Lifeline Hunter CEO Robert Sams.

Royal Far West is on a mission of their own delivering health, education and disability services to country children and their families.

Astonishingly, one in five children across Australia enter the school system with developmental challenges and Royal Far West aim to bridge that gap.

In 2017, Glencore partnered with Royal Far West to develop a program to help with the lack of speech pathology and occupational therapy services available in the rural communities of Springsure, Clermont and Collinsville. The program offers free developmental health screenings for young children.

Glencore’s support has also enabled the Clermont Kindergarten and Day Care Centre to operate with a multidisciplinary team including working with a speech pathologist, occupational therapist, and psychologist.

There was a long list of community organisations at the dinner in the Hunter Valley who have benefited from Glencore’s assistance and a number who were mentioned.

Aussie Ark in the Barrington Tops, Mackay-based Reef Catchments, Ungooroo Aboriginal Corporation, Angel Eyes by Brighter Lives in Townsville, rescue helicopter services including the Westpac Rescue Helicopter Service in the Hunter, CQ and Cap Rescue in Queensland, the HunterWISE program, StarFM at Capella State High School and Clermont Community Housing just to name a few.

It’s fantastic to see the support our mining industry provides to our regional communities.