Spend the day volunteering and getting paid like when you stay in the company, at your usual desk. This possibility will be granted to the over 700 workers of the group Enel who will participate in the new program launched by the company and presented on Friday in Rome.
The employees of the electric group will be able to collaborate on the projects of four associations. We start on April XNUMXst with the campaign "Let's clean up the world" by Legambiente, which provides for the cleaning of 10 urban areas in nine cities (Rome, Turin, Bologna, Venice, Cagliari, Florence, Palermo, Naples and Milan).
Also in April, work will begin with the Italian Parents Movement within the project “Young ambassadors against bullying and cyberbullying”, which consists of a series of meetings in high schools in various cities.
Before Easter it will be the turn of "We light up the tables", an initiative promoted by the association Quiet Neighborhoods, which deals with helping families in difficulty in the most disadvantaged neighborhoods of Milan.
Finally, the project will start in the summer “Beware of Waste” of the association Marevivo, which aims to clean up beaches and river banks with environmental redevelopment actions.
But why did Enel decide to launch a volunteer programme? We asked Charles Drums, director of Enel Italy.
Doctor Tamburi, where does this initiative come from?
«From the need to organize the theme of volunteering in a structured way. On many occasions we have understood that there is a great push, a great interest from our colleagues in volunteering, which, however, has so far been carried out in an unstructured way and outside the corporate systems. Now we want to facilitate these spontaneous initiatives, granting working days to those who want to participate in these projects".
What response did the employees get?
«We had estimated a commitment of 700 people for this year, but in half a day we had 4 thousand accesses to the online platform through which employees can join the various initiatives. Maybe we already need to review our programs, because we didn't expect such a large and enthusiastic participation».
How did you select the associations to collaborate with? Will they be able to increase in the future?
«To begin with, we identified these four associations because we already had partnerships with them linked to the world of sustainability, but in the future there will certainly be the possibility of extending the initiative to other realities as well. I think it would also be interesting to receive proposals from colleagues to forge relationships with associations that we do not yet know».
