Our alumni living all over the world, who are becoming a larger percentage every year, can now also contribute their grain of sand to building a better world through Giving-back Consultants and other volunteer possibilities organized by the association.
Until now, we have had a positive impact on the local community, but we set ourselves a more ambitious challenge: What if we connect to people living all over the world to generate a positive social and environmental impact in different parts of the world?
So we got down to work with this dream in mind. Finally, this academic year, 2022-2023, we have launched four opportunities to give back internationally, all of them online and in English.
Our Alumni community has been working to build a fairer society and a more sustainable world for over 15 years via pro bono consultancies for organizations in the social ecosystem in Spain, where we offer management knowledge to contribute to their strength and sustainability.
This year, we wanted to take it a step further and launch the international Giving-back Consultants program, and it’s been a resounding success. We are working on two projects, one in Nepal and the other in Switzerland:
AWASUKA Foundation - NEPAL: This organization’s mission is to improve the living conditions of rural communities in remote areas of Nepal, especially women and children, by empowering them with technical habitat-related knowledge which enables them to get safer homes. The goal of the Giving-back Consultants is to develop a finance and communication plan.
SDG’s of the project: 9.1, 9.A, 11.1, 11.3, 11.5, 11.b, 11.c
LIMMAT Foundation – SWITZERLAND: This organization offers donors from Switzerland and elsewhere the chance to implement philanthropic projects that support local partners via social and educational projects that improve the lives of the neediest people, especially women and children. The goal of the Giving-back Consultants is to develop a plan to measure these projects’ social impact.
SDG’s of the project: 17.19
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-27 alumni living in 13 different countries.
-2 pro bono consultancies valued at €15,000 each.
-General SDG’s of consultants: 16.6 , 16.7 , 17.16 , 17.17
This year at Esade Alumni Social we decided to focus on promoting diversity, equity and inclusion. To do so, we held an online workshop in English in conjunction with Moving Stories.
Moving Stories offers an activity that is as simple as it is difficult to put into practice: a true conservation, “the kind that matters,” between the Alumni community and a person who has been excluded in their work environment due to their appearance, identity, disability or way of thinking or loving.
We brought eight people with moving stores about something that makes them professionally vulnerable together with 27 Esade alumni, most of them executives or heads of human resources at large corporations.
These eight people told their stories about autism, transgender, face tattoos and piercings, childhood migration, chronic depression, gender violence, childhood cancer and multiple sclerosis.
A safe space for reflection was created in small groups, where the participants shared their opinions of the story of one of these people based on exclusion and rejection at work due to the unfair labels that society places on them. After this debate, the participants had the opportunity to meet the real person.
And many beliefs, prejudices and personal reflections held as true before meeting the person were undone through plenty of dialogue.
The goal of these encounters is for them to serve as a moment of reflection for people in our community in managerial roles, where they can either make the decision to give someone with a story like these a chance or continue with the story of discrimination.
What would you do if the CV of a person like this reached your desk?
Be part of the change and give opportunities!
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-27 alumni
-44% of members from the international community from 10 countries like Brazil, China, USA, Peru, Germany, Poland, Switzerland and Hungary
-SDG’s: 8.5, 8.8, 10.2, 10.3
“In just two and a half hours you facilitate an intense and very real workshop that shakes up our minds. I love the format. Congratulations!”
A participatory experience, a strategic challenge, a project with a social impact with the participation of more than 40 Esade Alumni in more than 10 different countries for an intense week.
The collective effort was made to benefit the NGO Dream Nepal, in Kathmandu, whose goal is to attend to the needs of children in Nepal whose mothers are in prison. The organization provides a safe home, a proper diet, healthcare, psychological care and education to guarantee the children’s proper development.
However, just like any organization or company, it has to grapple with many future challenges, so the four multidisciplinary teams, each accompanied by a facilitator, worked intensely for more than 12 hours using the Design Thinking method to offer this reputable NGO innovative, valuable solutions.
We at Esade Alumni firmly believe that this project brings our alumni value, because they have the chance to practice skills like collaborative leadership, active listening, creativity, critical thinking and social responsibility. Plus, it’s a great chance to share knowledge about strategy, marketing, fund-raising, creating alliances and sustainability with other Alumni community members.
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-1 NGO: Dream Nepal
-1 challenge
-4 projects
-39 alumni
-56% of alumni from the international community from 15 countries like Guatemala, Mexico, USA, Peru, Saudi Arabia, Greece, United Kingdom, Belgium, Indonesia, China, Kuwait
- 23% of the participants were under the age of 30
-SDG’s: 1, 2, 3, 4, 6, 10, 17
"It was really great so see all the different ideas that came up and all the NGO’s possibilities to keep doing what it’s doing”
Yet another year, we’ve continued with this formative project with the goal of promoting and raising awareness among the Alumni community.
DoGood is a participatory, transformative experience which poses challenges to do better in sustainability and social impact.
We are so absorbed by our day-to-day lives that we don’t always have the time to pay enough attention to small gestures like recycling, or we don’t dare to leave our comfort zone to generate an impact with simple acts like buying solid shampoo. This app suggests daily challenges related to sustainable habits that you can put into practice and share with photos on the wall (like on the social media), and you earn points as you complete challenges.
The result was 779 challenges completed by our community over the course of four weeks. Thanks to the participants’ contributions, we managed to reduce the negative environmental impact with 818,097 liters of water saved, 2,559 kg of CO2 not emitted and 23.79 kg of waste not generated, which is equivalent to 426 trees planted, 538 plastic shampoo bottles saved, 18 years of showers for one person and 3 years of charging a cell phone. In order words, that’s a huge impact!
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-243 alumni
-29% of alumni from the international community from Colombia, Argentina, Mexico, Saudi Arabia, Kazakhstan, Morocco and Italy
-26% of the participants were under the age of 30
-779 sustainable actions in one month
-90% of the users have acquired new sustainable habits
-SDG’s: 3, 5, 6, 7, 9, 10, 11, 12, 14, 15, 17
