Imperial Tobacco is supporting a scheme to improve adult literacy in the Dominican Republic and to promote greater social inclusion in the Caribbean nation.
The Altadis Foundation and Imperial’s local subsidiary, Tabacalera de García, are jointly backing the Ministry of Education’s “Quisqueya Aprende Contigo” (“Dominican Republic learn with you”) initiative.
The foundation will pay for specialist teachers and fund a community campaign in La Romana, where Imperial’s cigar factory is based.
Under the initiative, employees who have difficulty reading and writing will be provided with access to education resources along with the support of volunteers from the factory acting as coordinators.
“We’re helping our people and the wider community tackle an important issue in the Dominican Republic,” said Altadis Foundation General Manager Ines Cassin.
“The aim is to provide a basic education to those who didn’t have the same start in life as others, and our people will also be engaged in ensuring the success of this project.”
In the Philippines, Imperial employees are helping to maintain a river basin which drains into Manila Bay near the company’s Rosario factory.
Imperial’s subsidiary, the Philippine Bobbin Corporation, has joined with other businesses in adopting the Maalimango River as part of a local environmental protection scheme.
Thirty-eight employees from the factory volunteered to take part in a clean-up operation to remove rubbish from the waterway, and they joined volunteers from other local companies in planting trees along the riverbank to help prevent rubbish from ending up in the river.
“The Maalimango is important during the rainy season to help drain away floodwaters from the surrounding area,” said factory manager Carlos Saez-Diez Reberdito.
“However if it is clogged up by garbage it cannot do its job effectively, which can impact on the Rosario region.”
And in the Canary Islands, a group of Imperial volunteers has been working to help preserve one of its biggest natural pine forests.
The Tamadaba Park forest on Gran Canaria covers more than 7,500 ha and is extremely important for capturing rainwater.
It also provides a secure nesting area for birds and a wildlife haven for other protected species.
But in the summer months, the forest becomes very dry and the risk of forest fires is extremely high; so a group of 40 employees worked in 39-degrees-Celsius heat to pick up around one 1 tonne of pine needles from the forest floor and thereby alleviate the risk of fire.