transcosmos has been in the industry for 21 years and has always been an advocate of deciding and acting responsibly to ensure that the activities initiated in the company has a positive impact towards its environment, consumers, employees, community and stakeholders.
Here in the Philippines, transcosmos formally introduces the concept of Corporate Social Responsibility to its employees starting with giving back to its community.
Helping improve students’ welfare and education
The Adopt a School Program is our first major CSR program here in the Philippines and it aims to extend a helping hand by supporting a public school for a period of one year.
transcosmos has identified Kapitan Eddie Memorial Elementary School as the first for this program. It is approximately 3 kms away from the transcosmos Manila Office and is considered as the smallest and poorest public school in Taguig City. It has more than 2000 students, roughly around 50-60 students per class. Based on the needs raised by the school, we have identified three major activities to be initiated throughout the year to help improve their students’ welfare and quality of education:
1. Promote proper nutrition and sponsor a feeding program to malnourished children belonging to grade one (ages 6-8 years old).
2. Create awareness on proper hygiene/sanitation amongst its students, conduct a medical mission and a fitness program for teachers.
3. Provide DIY workshops to hone the students’ skills to livelihood activities at the same time improve the school facilities by having volunteers to clean the facilities, repaint blackboards or walls. This activity also aims to create awareness towards the Environment and Electricity saving.
transcosmos employees take part in the outreach program
In order for us to successfully roll out these activities, we asked for volunteers to help with the preparation of the program as well as those who can help out during the actual activity. Everyone wanted to have a transcosmos CSR Shirt but to minimize cost, employees volunteered to purchase their own shirt and do the silkscreen printing in the office by themselves. Thus, we scheduled a transcosmos Silkscreen day where Richard and John participated and got to print their own transcosmos CSR Shirts.
Richard Patterson, transcosmos CEO and John Mears, COO, visited Manila in November.
We also had the preparation of the loot bags to be distributed to the children. Each loot bag is composed of assorted nutritional snacks, cereals, milk and juice.
Unfortunately, we were hit by a powerful tropical cyclone, also called Yolanda, the day we were scheduled to visit the school so we had it moved to another Saturday, the 23rd of November.
transcosmos Healthy Army takes home priceless smiles
transcosmos volunteers.. we call them transcosmos Healthy Army.
Fifty grade one students between 6-8 years old, identified as severely malnourished students from their level, came for the feeding program. We were fortunate to have volunteers who spent time preparing overnight in the office for the puppet show. They also made sure that the materials to be used for the lecture and games were ready and helped with the other logistics required for the early morning event. Others came to the office early morning to help transport all the goods and some of the equipment needed for the program. It was such a great feeling to see how passionate our employees were in helping each other to reach out to these less fortunate kids.
The actual event started at 930am hosted by Kim Arenas, our Service Management Team Lead and Sheila Baguio, Acision GSD Team Lead. I, on the other, gave the opening remarks and an introduction about transcosmos and our Corporate Social Responsibility objective in having the Adopt A School Program.
It was evident on the children’s faces that they enjoyed the program all throughout. Kim and Sheila provided the lecture on proper nutirition, teaching the kids to identify the difference between healthy and unhealthy foods, coupled with some exciting games.
The teachers commented that there were 2 companies who sponsored a feeding program in their school in the past but they just donated funds. This was the first time that a company sponsored a feeding program and spent their time to provide an educational show as well as entertain the students while feeding them. They felt that it was more personal and that they knew the children appreciated it a lot. They even shared that they themselves enjoyed watching the program and it had benefited them as well because it gave them lots of ideas on how to make their lessons more interesting and capture the attention of their students. In fact while we were doing the program, the teachers were already brainstorming as to when they will do a similar program in their school.
After the lecture, the transcosmos Healthy Army distributed the sandwiches and drinks to the kids for snacks while watching the puppet show and the story telling. The children were focused and engaged in watching the puppet show which Joshua Rivera, Senior Shared Data Entry Agent in Oracle, has written specially for this event. It was to ensure that we capture the children’s interest at the same time provide some lessons pertaining to proper nutrition which the kids will easily remember.
A truly amazing experience
Words are not enough to describe the feeling we had by seeing how happy we’ve made these children even for a short time. It was quite touching when one of the teachers shared that one of the kids has been diagnosed with lukemia and has been very difficult to feed. However, they were surprised to see her eat and finish her meal during our event and was even participating. It was just an amazing experience to hear these things from the teachers and see each child wear a smile on their face all throughout the activity.
Overall, I can say that this event was truly a success. To all our volunteers – transcosmos Healthy Army, those who took photos and videos, those who shared their transportation, those who delayed their teambuilding activities to spend more time with the children and to all our respective family members who joined us to support and assist us, we thank you from the bottom of our hearts for your time and passion to help.
Most of all, thank you to my CSR Team (Kim, Sheila, Deejay, Shellee, Ida) for all the hard work and the dedication you’ve put in organizing this event and making it a success. It was truly an amazing experience to be able to reach out to our less fortunate brothers and sisters and see how we’ve touched their lives in our own simple way. We look forward to our other upcoming CSR Initiatives to be rolled out not only here in Manila but even in our other sites in UK and Hungary.
