For 15 years, Levi Strauss & Co. has organized a global day of service known as Community Day. It’s day where employees throughout the globe go into their communities and give back by cleaning, painting, teaching and mentoring in a variety of projects for hundreds of organizations.
On Thursday, May 14, we held a Community Day project with our partner GrupoM. The park in the center of Oauanaminthe was in desperate need of painting, cleaning and playground maintenance.
So the LS&Co. employee volunteers and the entourage arrived for service. The morning kicked off with the newly elected mayor of Oauanaminthe coming to greet us and thank us for our partnership. (He was flanked by his two security guards swinging rifles from their necks.) We also drew a significant attention from the entire park crowd with our film crew. (We’ve been documenting the week with a film crew following us.) They brought a drone to fly over the park to capture aerial shots of the work performed on the park. So as if a group of very Western looking Americans didn’t draw enough attention, the flying camera made us a true spectacle in the park.
Regardless, everyone grabbed a rake, a paint brush or a hammer and went to work. What was most inspiring was not the fifty workers from LS&Co, GroupoM or the Dominican Red Cross volunteering. What moved every member of our crew was all of the Haitian community members who stepped up and asked to paint or sweep or fix the playground equipment. They saw the benefit of a refurbished park and wanted to play their role in its beautification.
We spent about three hours in the 90 degree weather working and we made a pretty significant difference. They mayor asked that we stop by his office so he could present to us the key to the city. We crowded into his sparse office (it had a mail tray but no computer) and he thanked us for helping in what he planned as many refurbishment products that would take place in Oaunaminthe. According to the mayor the Haitian news media covered the event and the island was all aware of the first official “Oauanminthe Community Day.”
The afternoon took us back to the factory and to the Codevi Park. We had the chance to sit in on two HERHealth trainings taking place in two separate factory classrooms. The execution of the HERHealth program is supported by the Levi Strauss Foundation. These lessons are taught by peer health educators – volunteers from the factory – to educate women on a number of topics which include nutrition, reproductive health, hygiene and sexually transmitted diseases.
From there we went to the onsite daycare facility – Tipa Tipa (step by step) where we brought gifts of diapers, breast pumps, and a thermometer. We had a few minutes to witness the mothers taking a break from the factory to nurse their babies and also crawl on the floor and play with them for a few minutes.
Again on the move, we celebrated with some of the children whose parents worked at the factory. We had the kids draw a variety of pictures. Our hope is to try and create a t-shirt using artwork from one of the factory worker’s children and sell it in our stores to continue to support the worker well-being programs. GrupoM made the event a party with balloons, music, food and a really creepy clown that the kids loved. Everyone watched the kids dance and sing and just enjoy an afternoon of fun. It’s definitely worth noting that all kids were dressed in their finest clothes and they looked precious.
A connection between our employee’s children back in San Francisco was the distribution of stuffed animals to the Haitian kids at the party. These animals were constructed by the SF kids on our “Take Your Kids to Work Day.” As the animals were distributed, the children squeezed their stuffed creations and opened the envelopes tied to their necks. They pulled out cards that had been written in English that read “ hope” or “make sure you squeeze him tight when you go to bed at night.” The delivery and receipt was a reminder of what we have back at home and what a delight it is to receive such a gift.
But there’s more.
Throughout the Codevi park you will see trees planted in honor of individuals. We had our inaugural Service Corps. group plant a tree to mark the beginning of what we hope to be an ongoing exposure to LS&Co.s commitment to improving worker well-being.
The rest of the night was something out of a Latin fantasy novel with music, food and crazy carnival creatures. Probably best to sum up as what happens in Villas Codevi stays at Villas Codevi.
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