When big companies Show hearts

More than 60,000 students throughout the country are now benefiting from the Aboitiz Group’s initiatives in education last year, amounting to P437 million or 72 percent of its total budget allocation for corporate social responsibility (CSR).

Of its P610-million CSR spending in 2014, some 21 percent or P129 million was allotted to health-related and other corporate donations, five percent or P30 million to enterprise development programs, and the remaining two percent or P15 million to environmental protection.

This is the largest amount the Group has allocated so far, up by 26 percent from its P483-million CSR budget in 2013. “In our focus area of education, our goal is to achieve universal public education by continuing to establish and develop Aboitiz Better World schools that promise a better learning environment,” said Aboitiz Group CEO and President Erramon Aboitiz.

The Aboitiz Group, led by its social development arm Aboitiz Foundation, has partnered with the Department of Education (DepEd), in constructing 27 classrooms in Ilocos Sur, Laguna, Albay, and Cebu for TechVoc high schools. The Foundation will continue funding teachers’ training for Technical Education Skills Development Authority’s (Tesda) NCII certification.

In 2014, the Aboitiz Group built a total of 185 new classrooms to help address the issue of overcrowding and lack of classrooms in public schools nationwide. In the last 26 years, it has donated more than 800 classrooms. The Foundation turned over 23 regular classrooms in nine schools in Benguet, Cebu, and Davao del Sur last year. It also turned over 42 additional Silid Pangarap kindergarten classrooms in partnership with the Aklat, Gabay, Aruga tungo sa Pag-angat at Pag-asa (AGAPP) Foundation, which it has been supporting in the last four years.

Majority of the Foundation’s infrastructure building projects last year focused on the Post-Yolanda Schools Rehabilitation Program where it surpassed its commitment to build or rehabilitate 200 classrooms. This year, the Foundation completed the physical turnover of 272 classrooms to Northern Cebu schools devastated by super typhoon Yolanda. –End-

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