They say that giving is the true meaning of Christmas and Convergys, one of the country’s top employers, certainly took this to heart when its workforce donated P18 million for Give A Bag Of Hope (GABOH). The charity program is entirely employee-driven — the funds come from voluntary salary contributions of the call center giant’s team members.
Now on its third year, the campaign which provides bags filled with books and school supplies to public schoolkids was made possible by 42,000 Convergys employees, and benefits over 35,000 students nationwide. It is also the company’s people who spend 10,000 volunteer hours visiting the partner schools and communities in the areas where it operates, in order to personally distribute the items and run story-telling sessions to encourage the love of reading.
As the employee contributions grow each year, Convergys has also extended GABOH’s impact in 2017 beyond the kids who receive the bags of hope to other sectors of society. It partnered with social enterprises like Bag943 which employs marginalized individuals to produce the bags, and Tahanang Walang Hagdanan which supports persons with disabilities (PWDs), who made the pencil cases and packed all school supplies into 35,000 bags for this project.
As a result, Convergys is spreading more hope throughout the year and into holiday season, as GABOH enabled jobs for people who thought they could not be employed anymore because of their disabilities, or their economic, social or educational status.
With GABOH Year 3, they as well as their families, and the schoolchildren recipients of bags of hope, face a brighter Christmas with more hope, and a fighting chance to pursue their journey towards a brighter future.
