Give & Gain Day, an initiative that started back in the UK in 2008 and has since become a global movement, is an annual day of Employee Volunteering celebrated globally on the third Friday in May. Since Friday is a weekend day in the Muslim world and Give & Gain is all about volunteering during working hours, it is celebrated the day before in this region, hence 19 May. In Dubai, Give & Gain Day is brokered by Engage Dubai - an Employee Volunteering programme run by the Dubai Chamber's Centre for Responsible Business. Following THE One Head Office’s hugely successful participation in 2014 and 2015, 37 Onederworkers repeated three of last years’ initiatives, which were again on Engage’s list of local NGO’s that required volunteers this year.
As THE One believes that education is the key to ending the cycle of poverty and is currently building a school in Barind, India through THE Onederworld, we once again supported Education4all. This UAE-based organization has been providing basic education tools to more than 50 remote village schools in India since 2009 and has so far provided more than 4,000 underprivileged children with stationery and used uniforms collected from the UAE. This year we again involved all our UAE stores and Head Office departments in our 2-week-long Stationery Drive and managed to collect a record-breaking 6,710 pens, pencils, erasers, sharpeners, colour pencils, crayons, notebooks, school bags and more! 9 Onederworkers spent an afternoon sorting all these donated items into 18 boxes, which they proudly handed over to an Education4all representative on 19 May. Find out how you can help at www.education4all.info
Our second initiative saw 15 of our Head Office volunteers once again heading out to Greenworks nursery on Al Barari Estate on the morning of 19 May. Their mission: to load 6,480 potting bags onto 120 pallets for the Give a Ghaf tree planting programme, organized by Goumbook. In 2011, Goumbook launched the Give a Ghaf Tree Planting Programme to raise public awareness about the Ghaf and its values, while encouraging people and organizations to plant indigenous trees and raising awareness of water scarcity. Despite the heat, our Onederworkers had a really good time, achieving the monumental task in under three hours! They can’t wait to exercise their green fingers again next year. Find out more on www.goumbook.com and www.giveaghaf.com
And finally, to wrap up Dubai Give & Gain Day 2016, 13 of our Office Onederworkers drove out to Sharjah on 19 May to again visit Manzil, a non-profit centre established in 2005 catering to 40 multinational mentally challenged students aged 4 to 26. Following an insightful orientation session, our team spent a magical and meaningful morning with the students, having fun baking muffins and making jewellery that will be sold at events to raise funds for the centre. Find out how you can get involved at www.manzil.ae and roll on Give & Gain Day 2017!
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