Responsabilité sociétale d’entreprise

This year, Paula is contributing to her local community by volunteering at her son’s school as part of the Charity Lunches Group – a committed team of around 30 parents. The group prepares and provides daily school lunches for 18 students in need, with recipients kept anonymous to protect their privacy. With a rotating schedule in place, each volunteer prepares meals a few times a year, helping to ensure no child goes without a nutritious lunch.

In April, Rachel had the privilege of spending a day volunteering at one of Smart Works’ centres—a UK charity that helps unemployed women get the clothing, confidence, and coaching they need to succeed in job interviews. Rachel spent the day organising clothing donations, which play a key role in helping women feel empowered and prepared. It was a great insight into how practical support can make a real difference, with 63% of clients securing a job within a month of their appointment.

Laura was a very busy bee in 2024, working on a number of varied and wonderful community projects!

She participated in local nature and beach clean ups, organised by Sealand, Parley and local Sentinal NGO’s.

Laura also worked with My Father’s House: a charity that provides food and supplies to the homeless. She took the school kids to help create 680 delicious sandwiches on Mandela Day.

Tom Roe Horse Sanctuary and the Seal Rescue programme were two further initiatives that Laura engaged with. An epidemic of rabies has spread through a local seal colony – dogs and humans have both been attacked and infected. To limit these incidences, seals must be regularly monitored with the help of volunteers.

And last but not least, Laura continued on a project from the previous year. She assisted in the building of a second classroom and restful garden for a local underprivileged school.

I got involved with a truly wonderful organization here in New York called The Closet.  They are a thrift/charity shop that offers affordable clothing and household items to those in need in the community.

I volunteered at their evening shifts and then will be helping with their big Christmas event is coming up.  As part of their grant and voucher program, they give approximately $100,000 to those in need around the community every year.

— Bridget

The LSB Malaysia team recently participated in a volunteering activity at the Tzu Chi Recycling and Education Center in Kuala Lumpur, contributing to the organization’s efforts to promote sustainability and environmental stewardship.

During the session, they assisted in sorting various recyclables, including paper, plastics, fabrics, and glass, into designated categories for repurposing. Guided by experienced Tzu Chi volunteers, they also learnt about the processes behind recycling and the transformative potential of waste management. From flattening cardboard and sorting different paper types to categorizing plastic bottles, each task underscored the importance of collective action in reducing environmental impact.

In addition to the hands-on experience, the team gained valuable insights into Tzu Chi’s broader initiatives, such as turning recycled materials into usable items like blankets, and fostering a culture of sustainability through education.

This month, LSB India collaborated with Vatsalyam Gurukul School in Noida. This inspiring organisation provides a safe haven for destitute children, equipping them with education and life skills for a brighter future.

The team hosted an exciting art competition where the children showcased their best creative skills. It was a fun day for them with several students winning exciting prizes.

For the last four years, I have volunteered at a local artist-run gallery named “Frankfurter Künstlerclub”. We organise concerts, art shows and book readings with events happening every week from March to November. My main motivation here is to keep this very old “Garden House” in use and to keep its valuable cultural heritage alive. I was a board member for two years and managed the team and digitalisation of the club. For the last two years I have been organising the art shows and have stepped down from the board to focus on planning good exhibitions and supporting local artists. It is a huge joy to be playing my part in keeping this beautiful space alive.

— Rosanna, Consultant

This month Wendy updated us on her continued volunteering at Bath Welcomes Refugees, where she teaches refugee students English each week:

I continue to teach once a week at Bath Welcomes Refugees. The beginners group I teach has become so big that we have had to divide the students into two groups. We find we have to take a different teaching approach for students who are for example not familiar with a Latin-based alphabet such as ours or who, in some cases, are illiterate in their own languages. Some of our refugees have not received any formal education in their countries of origin while others are victims of trafficking or have fled war zones. BWR does amazing work as a charity, aside from the teaching I do, helping refugees with housing, furnishings, resettlement & befriending, including accompanying refugees to appointments & helping them into education & work wherever possible.

https://www.bathwelcomesrefugees.org.uk/ 

Oliver is a husband and father of 2 girls. Through his own Lived experience of anxiety, overwhelm and depression, he found meditation, which saved him. He has written a book on inspirational leaders, and set up a non-profit mental health digital platform called Head Talks.

‘Our world is bursting to capacity, particularly with the advance of technology & mobile phones. We humans, whatever our age, live in an almost constant state of stimulation, stress and overwhelm. The damage and challenges this poses to our mental health is huge.

Meditation is learning to be fully absorbed in one activity or one moment. It is mastering the mind so we can learn to be calm and present even whilst there is chaos going on around us. It takes practice, using simple techniques such as breathing.

Meditation has been around for 2000 years and is very good for our mental health.’

Oliver has been trained by a certified Connected Kids Trainer to teach meditation professionally to children and teens. He offers free meditation classes to kids and schools in his area.

‘Two thirds of young people would prefer mental health support, without going through their GP.’

‘The likelihood of young people having a mental health problem has increased by 50% since 2022.’

This year I have volunteered with BLINK Mental Health (https://www.blinkmentalhealth.org.uk/) – after having utilised one of their one to one talking therapy sessions at a festival in early 2023 – I volunteered with BLINK 3 times this year at various festivals, more to come next year.  Their mission is to provide safe and open spaces for people to receive professional mental health support, where they can be heard, connect with others, and reconnect with themselves.  One of their founders Mike McAdam was let down by the system when he needed mental health support and founded the charity in order to provide a pop up service at festivals with a dual purpose.  The primary one is to open up the conversation around mental health and make it normal.  A good space to do this he finds is at festivals, where people are generally more open.  By providing a chill out space, with very comfy bean bags and mindful activities and also one on one single session therapy at no cost to festival goers they have helped 100’s of people over this year and will carry on doing so.

Since 2020 I have also supported the Rebel Finance School (https://rebeldonegans.com/finance/rfs/) in their mission to teach as many people as possible about financial independence, and to show how it is a very achievable goal for everyone.  They run an 10 week online course each year, which they deliver entirely free of charge to whoever is interested, globally.  Since the 10th of June, their first video in the series has had almost 26,000 views and their support group on Facebook has almost 13,000 members.  My role in that is to assist with supporting the people in the FB group and to help answer questions that come up both in the group and in the live sessions.

— Dominic, Consultant

A highlight this year would be helping one of my twins do the “Yorkshire Three Peaks”, a 26-mile route with 5200ft ascent spanning the mountains of Whernside, Ingleborough and Pen-y-ghent.

We started the walk on a cold November morning at 6am (in the dark) and finished nearly 11 hours and 30 miles later (in the dark!). We managed to raise around £2k for a children’s mental health charity.

— Ben, Consultant

We once again took part in CITY CYCLING, a competition that involves completing as many daily journeys as possible in an environmentally-friendly manner using your bike over a 21-day period. Every kilometre counts – and even more so if you would have completed the journey by car otherwise. To help draw attention to cyclists’ needs, CITY CYCLING also targets local politicians. After all, it is them who make the decisions when it comes to the cycling infrastructure – and thus to the practical local climate protection.

In Germany, more than one fifth of climate-damaging CO₂ emissions are caused by traffic City Cycling, so it is about avoiding CO2 emissions as well as to encourage more people to cycle and to enhance the bicycle friendliness of cities. Of course City Cycling is also a bit about the competition: the team which has cycled the most kilometres in each city or municipality will get an award.

London Speaker Bureau Germany also supports Sozialtreff 88 e.V. in Karlsruhe – an event running  regularly to provide food and supplies to the homeless. We regularly donate cakes to provide a rich cake buffet after the delicious 3-course meal.  At the social centre, volunteers cook every week for homeless and socially disadvantaged people who are often unable to afford a proper meal. They enjoy a freshly prepared meal and are served as if they were in a restaurant – a special day of the week for many guests. At the social centre’s summer party, we baked hard with numerous helpers to make the cake buffet the highlight of the party.