TIP team members helped transform classrooms at Tondo High School in preparation to welcome students back in November
By Jay Luna
More than 1,250 volunteers from the Telus International Philippines (TIP) extended support to the “Brigada Eskwela” program of the Department of Education as part of the organization’s annual corporate social responsibility program focused on making life better with the help of various grassroots charitable groups and foundations.
The Telus team members trooped to the Tondo High School in Manila on board at least 12 buses, on October 1, Saturday to take part in the 15th annual Telus Days of Giving where they renovated the school’s classrooms, clean up the campus area and plant trees.
Telus International Philippines president and CEO Jeffrey Puritt said that the event is their way of helping the Filipino students to prepare for the first face to face classes in the last two years since the pandemic struck. Puritt added that through the activity, they are helping some 7,000 students of the school and provide them a more conducive environment to study.
“We are participating in this what we call “Telus Days of Giving” around the world everywhere we have operations for 13 years now we have even we have a bit of a challenge during the pandemic although even with those two years we had virtual events to keep our team members were safe and not risking of getting infected by the virus. We did exercises to raise money to give to charities but specifically we’ve been partnering with Brigada Eskwela for the last eight years,” Puritt said.
“This is the seventh school that we’ve renovated . Here, (Tondo High School), it is about a hundred classrooms and we are renovating 52 of them and we are building six more classrooms. We are helping about 7,000 students to get ready for returning to the school year in class for the first time in two years. We are pretty excited to have our 1,200 members of our local team to help us,” he added.
The Telus official said that they are regularly working with a local community board to help choose the most worthy beneficiary from the program.
“In choosing the beneficiaries we have a local community board composed of local community leaders and our local team members and we receive applications from hundreds of worthy grassroots charities looking for support and our team evaluate which ones of the applications are the most impactful the most important where we can have the biggest effect and so far the Brigada Eskwela has made it to the top of our list,” Puritt noted.
“We do other things too… we plant trees, we clean up garbage, we clean homes,” he further explained.
“I think so far we’ve donated almost five million dollars just here in the Philippines over the last nine years it goes to dozens of different charitable organizations to help them in their own philanthropic efforts,” Puritt continued.
The Telus International Philippines Community Board contributes USD $100,000 annually to local charities and grassroots foundations
TELUS International Philippines is a leading digital customer experience (CX) innovator that designs, builds and delivers next-generation solutions for global and disruptive brands, including AI and content moderation.
Empowered by the company’s “we give where we live” philosophy, the volunteers, including TIP employees from the six TIP sites in Metro Manila and their family members, helped transform 52 classrooms at Tondo High School. Volunteers also built four temporary classrooms to address the school’s classroom shortage.
“We owe the success of our TELUS Days of Giving to our team members who have shown their tremendous support and dedication, and who have invested tens of thousands of volunteer hours since 2014 to refurbish and renovate public schools across the region. By keeping the Filipino spirit of ‘Bayanihan’ alive, their presence today enabled us to transform Tondo High School into a vibrant, conducive learning environment through volunteer activities such as painting classrooms and hallways, painting mural designs in staircases, chair refurbishment, gardening and landscaping, and the construction of makeshift classrooms. This is a meaningful way for our team members to share their time and effort, in giving back to the communities where we live and work,” said Rajiv M. Dhand, Regional Vice-President for Asia Pacific at TELUS International.
Since 2014, TIP’s support of DepEd’s Brigada Eskwela program has helped more than 40,000 grade school and high school students across Metro Manila.
In addition to helping schools through DepEd’s Brigada Eskwela program, TIP is also committed to empower Filipino youth through company initiatives, including the company’s internship program for IT students in partnership with schools called ‘Code Your Career,’ and several CSR activities including the creation of e-learning modules, translating children’s books to local dialects, providing training on anti-bullying online, and raising funds for school kits and learning modules.
TELUS International Philippines, Inc. is a leading Philippines-based provider of digitally-enabled customer experience and business process solutions and is a proud member of the global TELUS International family. Today, TELUS International Philippines has six sites strategically located throughout Metro Manila, and two new sites in Iloilo, which supports some of the world’s top brands.
TELUS International’s unique caring culture promotes diversity and inclusivity through its policies, team member resource groups and workshops, and equal employment opportunity hiring practices across the regions where it operates. Since 2007, the company has positively impacted the lives of more than one million citizens around the world, building stronger communities and helping those in need through large-scale volunteer events and charitable giving. Five TELUS International Community Boards have provided $4.8 million in funding to grassroots charitable organizations since 2011. Learn more at: telusinternational.com