Please note: This article discusses the topic of suicide, which some colleagues may find confronting.
In 2021, NAB’s Kuok Puok lost a good friend to suicide.
It came as a shock as Kuok said that his friend “hadn’t communicated about where his mental health was at”. It also opened Kuok’s eyes to the fact that there were many other young men experiencing similar challenges.
“There were a lot of issues in the African community, mainly mental health and crime,” Kuok said.
“My friends and I saw this as an issue that just kept rising and rising every year and we got to a point where we needed to do something for our community. Something we could control, something we could run.”
So Kuok and his friends came together with a goal to engage African Australian youth. From this, NextGen Unite was born.
Through access to music and football, Next Gen provides African Australian youth with stable adult figures, something many of them are missing in their home lives.
“When I was younger, we used to do a lot of community engagement activities,” he said. “When I was about six years old, my uncle used to take me to community programs.
“We learnt how to do our cultural dance. We learnt how to write and read our language. As I grew up, I realised that’s not around anymore.”
When Kuok was around the age of 15, a lot of his friends used their phones and iPods to rap, sing, and create music videos.
He remembers thinking, “Wow, imagine if you guys had these opportunities when you were younger”.
Through NextGen Unite, Kuok wants to give others some of the opportunities that he has had, like participating in Aussie culture through sport.
“You might think footy is just footy, but there’s so much culture in football,” he said.
“They really bring you in, they teach you the slang and they teach you the Australian culture in general. It’s not something you learn at work or at school.”
“I’m not just an African in Australia. I’m an African Australian.”
This coming weekend, Kuok will be one of over 50 NAB colleagues volunteering at the African Music and Culture Festival (AMCF), the largest celebration of African culture in the Southern Hemisphere embodying harmony, diversity, and inclusion.
NAB through the Cultural Inc. Employee resource group and Personal Bank is proud to be the platinum sponsor. We want to be the bank of choice for the African communities here in Australia—working together to provide financial guidance and support that empowers individuals, families, and businesses.
On the day, Kuok and the team will be helping potential customers with financial literacy, account openings, but also referring these customers to specialists.
“We have a lot of business in African communities, but they don’t really know how to engage with business bankers, and they don’t know if they can get lending,” said Kuok.
With over 50,000 people expected to drop-in across the three days, Kuok is excited to not only focus on offering financial services but also attract African Australian talent to NAB.
“The more people at NAB who have cultural awareness of other communities, the better,” he said.
