To the people of Indonesia and the world, Royal Golden Eagle (formerly Raja Garuda Mas) represents a multi-billion dollar empire spanning multiple industries and countries.
What is lesser known is its commitment to ‘Social Stewardship’—working together with local communities to alleviate poverty and advance Indonesia’s quality of life. RGE pursues this strategy through a range of programmes focused on crucial development areas, such as education, healthcare, skills and training upgrade, and infrastructure development.
RGE is also keenly focused on empowerment, mainly through its partnership with the Tanoto Foundation. The partnership supports SMEs as well as craftsmen and farmers in its operations. To date, RGE has supported over 200 SMEs in 40 villages by providing financial and technical aid and generating more employment opportunities for those communities.
As a parent company, Royal Golden Eagle has leveraged some of its subsidiaries to create specialised solutions for farming.
For instance, APRIL introduced the Integrated Farming System, complete with training centres focused on sustainable farming and technical assistance.
Bracell, meanwhile, supports a range of programmes to increase and diversify income and skill sets of the farming community, and further promote sustainable policies.
Education
As of today, the RGE group and Tanoto Foundation have collectively given out over 17,000 education scholarships at the primary, secondary, and post-secondary levels. Students, however, are only half the story when it comes to education. In that time, RGE has also supported the training of over 700 teachers. RGE says these initiatives affirm its belief in ‘education as an agent of social change’.
The RGE business groups also support the education of its staff and members by creating accessible platforms in partnerships with local authorities, non-governmental organisations, and educational institutions, to receive and complete their education.
Healthcare
RGE has a significant interest in improving healthcare for people living in rural areas, many of which are out of reach of government-subsidised healthcare. In this year alone, RGE organised over 20 health campaigns to engage communities and spread knowledge and awareness on health, nutrition, and hygiene.
RGE has also supported training for over 300 healthcare givers, thereby raising the quality of healthcare and benefitting over 150,000 people.
Skills and Training
RGE subsidiary, Asian Agri pioneered a couple of national smallholder partnership programmes.
- Plasma (PIR-Trans National Government Migration) scheme
- Kredit Koperasi Primer Anggota (KKPA)
Together, these schemes cover some 60,000 ha of plantation land and 11 estates home to 30,000 families. Multiple teams of dedicated and experienced management provide smallholders with skills upgrading and technical expertise.
The teams also provided valuable assistance and instruction to the smallholders’ infrastructure development, the High Conservation Value Forest (HCVF) concept, and control of fire and haze.
Infrastructure
Infrastructure development is a major focal point of RGE’s corporate social responsibility. To date, the company has been involved in the provision and maintenance of clean water, sanitation, and electricity for over 15,000 people across multiple communities.
Other infrastructure developments undertaken by RGE on a regular basis include bridges, roads, public schools, power generators, places of worship, religious schools, and sporting facilities.
