Since 2005, GE Volunteers (GEV) has spent more than 12-million hours with external organisations on 52,000 volunteer projects across 61 countries, all for the greater good. GE’s focus on volunteerism started in 1981 and evolved 11 years ago to encourage broader participation through community organisations around the world. The company now has 262 GEV Councils encouraging the spirit of volunteerism in the environment, education, community-building and health sectors.
Recently, the One GE group in Nigeria teamed up with the Eyinmba Cluster for a Global Month of Service with a Recycle and Win competition that aimed to educate secondary school students and, by extension, their communities about recycling and the facilities available in Nigeria.
The campaign to educate the community through learners was set up as a competition which involved 12 schools (six in Lagos, five in Port Harcourt and one in Abuja). The students who brought in the highest number of recyclables in each of the schools would win a tablet sponsored by GE, which was preloaded with educational material and apps.
Image above: The One GE team congratulated the overall winner at the Wesley Girls Senior Secondary School in Yaba, Lagos who collected 5,332 bottles during the recycling campaign.
Image top: Students at the Wesley Girls Senior Secondary School count up all the recyclables they collected. Image credits: GE
The school with the highest average number of recyclables would get 20 laptops donated by GE’s IT for Charity division. At GE’s Nigeria office, 12 teams were set up and one team was assigned to each of the 12 schools to help with their recycling efforts.
The total student population that was estimated to have been engaged as a result of this project was 10,000 to 12,000 with a total number of 24,000 people having been reached by extension.
Each of the GE team members also contributed $3 towards the prizes for the schools. “We feel it’s vitally important to get involved in community initiatives and to share our knowledge, and expertise with the public,” said Jay Ireland, GE Africa CEO and President.
“GE has a long history of volunteering and giving back to communities and this year, we felt it would be great to do something with school learners who could share their knowledge with other community members too. The Recycle and Win competition was a great success,” said Ireland.