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Once again, the Greeting Card operation was a huge success, collecting a total of €20.400 from the sale. The donation was officially made on March 23, 2009 to the SOS Villages d'Enfants Association, in the presence of Armelle Volkringer, corporate communication and exterior relations manager, Marie-Caroline Bizet, general representative of the Accor Foundation, Johanne Payen, quality and sustainable development director for Accor Afrique, and Gilles Paillard, managing director of the association.
Accor chose to donate the funds to the humanitarian association SOS Villages d'Enfants to support two projects being carried out in Africa:
- €11,000 were allocated to SOS Villages d'Enfants in Cameroon to help finance the school cafeteria in Douala.
The association's aim in Douala is to give brothers and sisters who cannot live with their parents the joy of growing up together in a family lifestyle. They are entrusted to an SOS mother who raises them until they can be independant. The mother offers the children the stable, emotionally supportive educational environment they need for their development.
Having observed the lack of collective food service for the children, the employees of Ibis, together with the technical expertise of the Africa technical manager, worked alongside the SOS team for several months on the plans to build a school cafeteria.
The donation comes in addition to funds already donated by Accor Foundation.
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- €9,400 were allocated to SOS Villages d'Enfants in Togo for its "family strengthening" programme in Lomé. SOS Villages d'Enfants helps empower and provide ongoing support to parents early on to avoid the most harmful outcome: abandonment. This approach implies individualised attention to family needs in several stages: from taking charge of children at risk of abandonment to raising the awareness of their parents, the programme seeks to make parents autonomous in rearing their children.
For one year, Accor employees of Lomé are involved in a swim program set up for the children of the community who can not swim. The principle is simple and effective: the children learn to swim in the swimming pool of the hotel. This program takes place every wednesday from 2:30 pm till 3:30 pm, much to the satisfaction of the swimming-instructors who noticed an improvment in the assimilation of the lessons that are taught to our young friends.
"It is simply moments of shared happiness, both for these children to learn to swim, and for our employees to make joy" specify Johanne Payen, Africa Expert to Accor Foundation.
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