World Vision, a Christian advocacy group dedicated to lifting children and their families from poverty, is staging a follow-up to the successful virtual Corporate Social Responsibility Summit.
The second summit will pool together companies that are actively supporting similar well-intended events as part of their CSR efforts.
Businesses are coming up with ways to extend assistance to those who are in great need, according to World Vision national director Rommel Fuerte.
“World Vision is privileged to once again hold the Corporate Social Responsibility Summit in Cebu. God’s work is truly amazing as we witness how our partner organizations implement their CSR initiatives. Let’s continue working together to improve the lives of the most vulnerable children, their families, and communities,” he said.
“God is truly faithful in enabling us to reach these individuals, especially the most vulnerable children, despite the challenging times. We’ve done all this because of our partnerships with the government, with individuals, private sector, churches and other non-government organizations,” Fuerte said.
He said companies’ CSR programs aim to improve health facilities, support the frontliners and provide food and financial assistance to affected communities especially in this time of crisis.
The virtual CSR Summit will take place on March 23, 2021 in Cebu City. Distinguished business leaders from Cebu are coming together to share their experiences and learnings during the pandemic. The event will be streamed live on World Vision Philippines’ Facebook page.
Business industry leaders joining World Vision’s virtual CSR Summit in Cebu include the Cebu Chamber of Commerce Inc., Coca-Cola Foundation Philippines, Golden Prince Hotel & Suites, Ramon Aboitiz Foundation Inc., Rotary Club of Cebu and the Singapore School Cebu.
World Vision will also recognize the valuable contribution of its partners—the Cebu Chamber of Commerce Inc., JCI Cebu, JCI Plaridel del Pilar, Public Relations Society of the Philippines, and Rotary Club of Cebu.
Fuerte said World Vision aims to discuss the significant role and relevance of a company’s CSR during critical times, and to inspire businesses and other organizations in the private sector to develop and implement CSR campaigns to be able to reach and improve more lives.
“And given the challenges, we’re facing now with COVID-19, the limited movements, food shortage, limited access to health care and despite these, we’re still wanting to do something good. And I think the reason we’re doing this CSR Summit is to bring together like-minded individuals to showcase that whatever challenges we’re facing, we can do something really good, especially for the least, for the most vulnerable among us,” Fuerte said.
World Vision Cebu Cluster Area manager Faith Richelle Sy said the group reached out to eight municipalities and three cities in Cebu, including Cebu City, Lapu-Lapu City and Mandaue City.
The group aims to reach out to at least 4,000 children through the CSR Summit. Right now, World Vision has launched education projects with livelihood component enabling sustainability for every family.
“We have special projects or grant projects that focuses on child protection, especially on the prevention of online sexual exploitation of children, as well as child labor trafficking. We have ongoing urban poor development projects that we have also been working closely with some of our partners. World Vision has been working with communities for quite some time already. But then last year, we also revisited how COVID-19 has impacted our communities because COVID-19, we know for sure, brought a lot of changes in the vulnerability landscape with impact on the child wellbeing across the country, and that includes here in Cebu,” she said.
Results of a survey conducted by World Vision showed that 92 percent of surveyed households reported that their livelihood were impacted and 60 to 80 percent of surveyed shared that they were not able to fully meet their daily expenses for food.
The survey also revealed that 21 percent of the children are not willing to go back to school due to concerns like module difficulties and internet connection. About 41 percent of the children confirmed that they experienced some forms of abuses while on lockdown.
“So this gave World Vision, more encouragement to work even more with different partners, specifically with the private sector because we believe that partnership with the private sector really play a critical role in nation building especially right now during this time of the pandemic,” Sy said.
She said World Vision’s partners in Cebu have shown their dedication to uplift the lives of children and Cebu’s vulnerable children are blessed to have the care and sponsorship of many solicitous companies.