Michelle McLean Children Trust receives donation from DHL in Namibia

DHL celebrate 20 years of doing business in Namibia. In recognition of this milestone, DHL have embarked on implementing a Corporate Social Responsibility Programme, where the Michelle McLean Children Trust benefits from a cash donation of N$50,000.

The money will be used to fund three projects that the Michelle McLean Children Trust run and each of these Projects focus heavily on the development of children, as well as Project Snowball, a project that is well known and supported by the Namibian public over the past twelve years.

Speaking at the cheque handover, Mr. Phil Couchman, DHL Regional Director for Sub Saharan Africa said, "We realize that giving back to the communities in which we operate is vital for the wellbeing of that community, society and humanity at large. Our responsibility as an international organisation, is to improve the lives of others in ways that reflect our values and our guiding principles.

Broad-based support from the staff

In executing our Corporate Social Responsibilities world wide, our focus is on children and we look at how best our contributions will make a difference, and for each country, this is unique."

In Namibia, the Michelle McLean Children Trust was selected for many reasons. The staff at DHL were asked to nominate projects that could benefit from the company's support and the Trust received broad-based support. In addition to the financial injection of N$ 50000.00, staff will give of their time and skills to the projects selected.

The Michelle McLean Children Trust will report back to the full staff compliment, not just management, of progress that is made in the projects that DHL have chosen to be a part of.

"It was vital to approach our selection of Corporate Social Responsibility recipient in this way. Our staff must support the initiative. In doing so, we all share in it and the reporting responsibility is to the staff as well. The donation comes from profits, and all our staff have worked hard to make that profit. It is only fair that they have a say in who should benefit from it and that the accountability is to them as well," is the opinion of Mr. Erlo van der Linde, DHL Namibia Country Manager. Mr. van der Linde has also overseen the Corporate Social Responsibility initiative.