Globe CSR projects target northern villages this year

Targeting to accomplish about 1,000 more corporate social responsibility projects this year, aside from their existing ventures, and reaching to about 700 more barangays and 300 schools nationwide, Globe Bridging Communities is also eyeing to reach out to Cebu’s barangays in the province’s northern towns this year.

Globe Bridging Communities (Globe BridgeCom) is Globe Telecom’s flagship corporate social responsibility (CSR) program that strives to empower and serve communities in the country by empowering community leaders and micro-entrepreneurs through their community and enterprise development projects, education and youth development initiatives by harnessing mobile and information technology.

Believing in the concept of sustainable development, Globe BridgeCom gives more importance in skills transfer than a one-time grant and since 2004; they have already reached to more than 2, 400 barangays nationwide with their various programs.

“We involve the community through doing community consultation and we also collaborate with the local government unit to enhance and enrich existing development projects because these are essential factors for the success of our programs,” stressed Jeffrey Ochoa Tarayao, Globe BridgeCom’s Head for Community Relations.

Major priority areas under BridgeCom are education and technology, environment, youth development, community involvement and entrepreneurship. Youth development and education are the major thrusts and together with their enterprise development projects, it composes the major bulk of Globe’s CSR projects.

 In fact last 2007, Globe CSR projects reached to about P65 million to P75 million and this went to major project areas such as youth development, entrepreneurship and education.

Under their youth and education thrust, Globe BridgeCom has existing projects that include: Text2Teach program, Internet in schools program, computer donations and computer literacy programs, GT Eskwela, as well as various youth leadership development and international youth volunteerism exchanges.

Globe BridgeCom is targeting to roll out their Text2Teach program in 500 more schools nationwide in the next three to five years. At the moment, there already are about 815 out of the total 1700 public high schools in the country which they connected and 156 of which are in Cebu out of its 170 total public schools.

After reaching out to some towns last year in the south for their entrepreneurial development projects like candle and soap making in the town of Oslob, meat processing for Asturias and Carcar, BridgeCom this year is eyeing northern Cebu barangays in the towns of Borbon, Bantayan and Catmon for more livelihood programs.

“We want to reinforce our presence in these areas and also get to know the towns better. We do not usually provide capital but we partner with micro financing institutions because what is important for us is skills transfer. To achieve sustainable development, we want these people to develop life-long skills that they can apply in their daily lives,” said Tarayao.

In these future projects in Cebu’s northern towns, Tarayao said that they will also be collaborating with DTI’s OTOP programs to provide assistance in some areas like marketing.

As an offshoot of their recent volunteerism program held in Carcar, Tarayao said that they are looking at connecting high school and college students of Cebu on a new program which will be launched on the third quarter of this year.

“We in business understand that education is really the contributor in the country’s progress but it takes the entire ecosystem in order to achieve a multiplier effect. And to gain sustainability, we also need to empower all the stakeholders of society,” stressed Tarayao. – Rhia de Pablo