Giving back to the community one village at a time

There are many gratifying rewards in driving a team to reach out to a community with the goal of instilling pride in one’s surroundings and primary environment. There are plenty of opportunities to help keep Saipan beautiful. A great way for a company to draw groups and individuals to make a difference is by setting in motion projects that bolster community goodwill and pride.

Aptly called Village Pride Project, the neighborhood cleanup and beautification campaign was initiated by Best Sunshine International, Ltd.’s tandem corporate social responsibility teams to fulfill the company’s commitment to give back to the community.

“I designed the Village Pride Project to get CSR in the villages, working with villagers providing support with beautification, “ explains CSR director Rita Chong.

The whole vision, according to Chong, is to bring pride into the community.

And for the past months, this has led to growing collaboration with the community and other stakeholders, allowing them to take part and ownership of community-oriented programs that value and promote collective work.

Activities under the Village Pride Project is also about partnership—and connecting the private sector to the community, one that extends beyond corporate work to build a stronger and sustainable community beautification and development programs that result in greater community involvement and engagement.

“For all of us to be proud of the villages we live in and to be motivated to work together to beautify our villages so that when our visitors come to our island, they will also want to come see the beauty of our villages and what makes each one unique,” adds Chong.

These projects offer the company the chance to actualize and explore potentials for community involvement by means of repair and restoration projects around the island’s neighboring villages. Whether it’s reconstructing a playground, repairing worn down amenities visiting the man’amko center, or clearing debris and unkempt areas of villages, the Village Pride Project of Best Sunshine’s CSR teams is an excellent way to bring about change at a personal level.

Village Pride also promotes partnerships with different agencies that assist BSI in their efforts to beautify and improve the CNMI.

According to Geri Dela Cruz, CSR 2 director, the “Village Pride Project is something special to me. This is my home, and home to the other 50 members of CSR. Going into communities and assisting in improving our islands is something that we all take pride in.”

She adds, “To cite an example, we are very happy with the outcome of the Dandan Village Pride event. When we assessed Dandan, there wasn’t a doubt that this place needed some TLC. We chose to make improvements at the Dandan Homestead Children’s Park. Dandan is very fortunate to have something like this in their community. I don’t know of any other place [on] Saipan that has something like this. When we first came in, all we saw were overgrown grass. After we started cleaning the grassy areas, we noticed that there was a playground there donated by Tan Holdings. As we continued our work in Dandan, we see children that joined us after school as they play in the playground. Such a great feeling.” (BSI)