This school used to be a plastic bottle. This school also used to be an
empty chip bag, a coffee cup and a candy wrapper. In fact, it used to
be a whole village full of inorganic trash that littered the streets and
clogged the rivers. This is a bottle school: a building comprised of
thousands of discarded water and soda bottles that have been packed hard
with other waste materials to make "eco-bricks." Funded by the
non-profit
Hug It Forward,
there are 30 such schools in Guatemala and El Salvador. And corporate
America is realizing the possible benefits of working with such
wonderful programs to give back.
Hug It Forward began in 2009 with the initial goal to send a hug around
the world. However, upon learning of the technology of bottle schools,
their objectives quickly transformed from a small project to
world-changing venture. Bottle schools are so much more than simply a
physical structure built out of waste materials. Their impact is far
greater than providing shelter for school children. They bring
communities together in solving their problems. Hug It Forward guides
the process and funds the basic costs of engineering and building the
schools ($6,500 per classroom). However, the community has to manage
the project and provide the teachers, and the local Ministry of
Education has to agree to provide the salaries. The community members
are also responsible for providing the eco-bricks, which means tackling
another community problem: trash. Oftentimes, there is plenty of it to
go around, as these villages have no waste management system. It takes
around 6,500 bottles to build a two-classroom bottle school and the
whole community participates, collecting the bottles and packing them
full of the other non-biodegradable trash. The final product? A
community-built school and a cleaner village.
But the schools have another purpose far beyond and away from this,
in a different location from the community-building and problem-solving
for villages in developing countries. Bottle schools are also an
opportunity for corporations in developed countries to engage in a more
conscious capitalism. Hug It Forward offers week-long voluntourism
trips in partnership with Serve The World Today, and several companies
are using the opportunity for a whole new kind of corporate
team-building. To date, their largest corporate sponsor is
WorldVentures (via their charity arm
WorldVentures Foundation), whose teams have helped build multiple schools and have funded over 20.
Lush Cosmetics
have also sponsored two schools. Both companies see these bottle
school trips as more than just a charitable opportunity, but also as a
way to improve their own corporate culture. Lush representative Erika
Edwards commented,
The employees come back changed, and
ready to hold their companies to a higher standard. Lush uses the
business volunteer retreat to get the employees to learn about each
other and to foster employee feelings that are on par with those of the
company's mission statements, which in the case of Lush, includes its
Charitable Givings program that promotes corporate philanthropy.
Edwards continued,
There
was a bond created between those that went on the trip that they now
feel even more a part of the Lush family as well as the Hug It Forward
team. These staff went back to share and present their trip experience
with their teams, which was incredibly inspiring. Having the opportunity
to go on a Hug it Forward trip has created an energy in the company,
and has motivated staff to get further involved in our Charitable
Givings initiatives.
Mike Azcue, CEO of WorldVentures, happened upon the opportunity
completely accidentally, but has affected the way he runs his company
more than he could have imagined. Azcue contacted Balle originally for a
web URL he was interested in purchasing from Balle. But a brief
conversation about each of their companies soon turned into recurring
email contact over a few months. Mike was incredibly interested in the
project, eventually asked Zach to come to a WorldVentures event in
Dallas to promote the schools. At that event alone, they raised enough
money for four schools. Azcue's former assistant was so affected by the
organization's involvement, in fact, that he moved to Guatemala to work
for Hug It Forward.
United Healthcare did a
joint study with VolunteerMatch
in 2010 to enquire upon the relationship between employers,
volunteering and public health and emotional wellbeing. Eighty-one
percent of a pool of employed Americans who volunteer through their
place of work felt that volunteering with co-workers "strengthened their
relationships," and 76 percent stated that "I feel better about my
employer because of their involvement in volunteer activities." But in
an even more startling statistic, it found that, when surveyed, 80
percent of Americans who volunteer through an employer described their
general life outlook as optimistic, in comparison to 60 percent of
non-volunteers. Ninety-six percent of that same pool agreed that
volunteering makes people happier, in comparison to 82 percent of their
non-volunteering counterparts.
However, volunteering isn't just relevant to employee happiness. It
also has shown to be directly tied to increasing effectiveness and
competency in a number of corporate work roles. The City of London
published
a study done by Corporate Citizenship,
which stated that 93 percent of employed Americans believed that
volunteer opportunities offer the opportunity to enhance leadership
skills, and over 82 percent believed it develops problem-solving skills,
decision-making skills and negotiating skills. Now these are a lot of
numbers, but what it could mean for your business is both happier
employees and more competent employees. If you aren't simply pulled in
by the idea of helping establish international community development and
give back, take note of the benefits it could bring.
In an era where money is tight, it is hard to imagine an
essentials-only budget would have room for employee engagement through
volunteer trips. However, Lush executive found a positive correlation
between involvement in the volunteer program and involvement within the
company, which promotes higher productivity rates and better retention.
"We talked about retention with the managers and from what I hear and
gather it costs $21,000 to hire a new manager versus under $2,000
(including both airfare and trip costs) to send a manager down here to
experience this." Edwards comments. "The end result is everyone gains a
greater understanding and connection to Lush". Azcue calls the effect
the bottle school experience had on the corporate culture
"immeasurable." "It's just something that you feel and I'm certain of
it. " He continues: "Our foundation is much broader than Hug It Forward,
but Hug It Forward is, in my personal opinion, the biggest part that
really drives the heart and emotion of our Foundation." At the current
costs of finding and training new hires, corporate volunteering becomes
both emotionally and financially economical.
With its group voluntour trips, Hug It Forward hopes that each trip
will not just end with the plane ride back, but concludes with an
affected mindset and more environmental and world consciousness by
companies involved.
The first time I went to San Diego
to spend time with Zach and Josh, I was going to the grocery store to
pick up my items and I was getting my plastic bottles of water and, it's
funny, because I'm visiting these guys that are all about getting that
trash off of the planet and I was contributing to the problem. I had
been such a fish in water back in Texas, it didn't occur to me.
Starting with myself, I'm way more conscious about the purchases I make.
I think it starts with self and we move from there. Also, all the
decisions we make as a company, we're asking ourselves - how is this
impacting the world and is this the right thing to do? A lot of what
we're working towards is not only about the environment, but also our
core values to honor, embody and expand trust and to contribute. So,
with core values like that we're holding ourselves accountable and
having organizations like Hug It Forward to be role models for us in a
sense.
Bottle schools are just one especially cool example of how corporate
partners have become involved and how they can get involved in the
future. Balle commented, "For every world problem, there is an
opportunity, and involving multi-national corporations and helping to
raise their consciousness is something we're passionate about." Azcue
commented,
It's been inspiring for us to watch Hug It
Forward, Zach, Josh, and the rest of their team as role models, not
necessarily of big business, but thought leaders and people that are
thought leaders in quality of life... They've made some really
courageous choices in their lives. While many of my peers and I have
gone on the journey of empire building and financial rewards, it was
really startling to see the efforts of Hug It Forward, but in a good
way. We're all looking to achieve happiness, that's what we're all
seeking, whether its love or money or that next vacation or more time
with your children. Our relationship with Hug It Forward has helped
shape the way that we're now looking at WorldVentures and the impact we
want to make.
