Our stories

Our partners and staff are involved in many community projects through volunteering, fundraising and administrative support across Australia and New Zealand.

Here are just a few examples:

• The Smith Family
• Radio Lollipop
• Engaged with our international community
• A day at the zoo

The Smith Family

Our children are Australia's future and also our country's most precious and vulnerable resource. Sadly, one in seven Australian children are living in disadvantaged situations and do not have access to the same educational, health or life opportunities that many of us enjoy and often take for granted. DLA Phillips Fox works in partnership with the Smith Family to help disadvantaged children and their families. Last year over 30 staff from the Brisbane office participated in a number of volunteering actives to support The Smith Family. This included lending a helping hand to The Learning for Life Program as well as packing and delivering toy and food hampers during The Toy and Book Christmas Appeal. Collectively, our offices donated 360 toys and books to the Christmas appeal. The Brisbane office also supports The Smith family through child sponsorship.

Radio Lollipop

Radio Lollipop, run by the Princess Margaret Hospital in Perth, believes in the healing power of play – providing smiles and laughter to children at a time when they need it most.

Young patients can request their favourite songs, win prizes and hear their own voices on the radio – activities which give them a haven of normality in the hospital day which is often scary.

Our partners and staff in Perth support Radio Lollipop financially. They also volunteer each week, spending time with the children and encouraging them to get involved in activities such as arts and crafts, face painting or trying their hand at being a DJ.

Engaged with our international community

As a firm with a global service capability, it's important that our we make a positive impact on lives outside Australia and New Zealand.

The tsunami that shook the world's consciousness in 2004 reaffirmed our obligation to our region. DLA Phillips Fox partnered with CARE Australia, which focuses on helping those affected by providing job skills, vocational training, setting up telephone exchanges and creating water supplies. This approach is in line with our Community Care goal to work with organisations that help people help themselves.

The financial donation from our people provided education and psychosocial support for the children of Mullaitivu in northern Sri Lanka. Mullaitivu was one of the worst hit areas and suffered significant loss of lives, livelihoods and damage to properties, crops and infrastructure. 

Minimising interruptions to schooling is an important strategy to help children recover from disasters and provide a framework for normality in times of loss and disruption. Our support provided uniforms, shoes, drink bottles, bags and recreational items, helping 2,000 children return to school sooner. It also helped provide group play activities to enable the children to talk about their experiences.

More recently our support for CARE Australia's World Hunger Campaign went to the Highland Community Education Program in Cambodia. The project is in the remote Cambodian province of Ratanakiri, on the border of Laos and Vietnam.

Many children there have either never enrolled in school or have left because their indigenous language is different from Khmer, the language of the government schools. CARE's team is developing a written script for the dialects and introducing Khmer to the children so that eventually they are able to participate in the formal education system.

We believe that education is a fundamental key to breaking the cycle of poverty and we're proud to support CARE in this effort in Cambodia.

A day at the zoo

For most people, a visit to the zoo is a nice day out. Perhaps it's an opportunity to entertain and teach the kids, or a chance for tourists to see Australia's unique wildlife.

For 20 overjoyed homeless men and women from Wesley Mission's Edward Eagar Lodge (EEL), a day at Sydney's Taronga Zoo was so much more than that. DLA Phillips Fox hosted  this brief, yet joyful, respite from the burden of inner-city street life.

The Edward Eagar Lodge provides hostel accommodation for 76 single people ranging in age from 18 to 80+ years. As part of our partnership with Wesley Mission, DLA Phillips Fox staff in Sydney have participated in volunteering activities at the Lodge and have provided financial and in-kind support.