Habitat for Humanity celebrates international award

HABITAT for Humanity TT is celebrating the Halo Award 2020 won by its partner Habitat for Humanity International.

The Halo Award is the North American organisation Engage for Good highest honour for corporate social initiatives and cause marketing.

Engage for Good president David Hessekiel said the Golden Halo Awards were reserved for companies and non-profit organisations that managed their affairs in a manner that meaningfully and measurably yielded social and financial dividends.

“We’re thrilled to showcase these organisations and their impressive efforts to unite and engage consumers and employees around initiatives that are making a purposeful impact in our world.“

“With the evolution of the social impact space and rising consumer and employee expectations, it’s incredibly inspiring to see how organisations like Habitat for Humanity are raising the bar for all of us.”

Corporate Communications Officer Habitat TT Tracy Hutchinson Wallace told the Newsday the award was given after an assessment of the work of the entire organisation including the work being done in the region.

“Habitat TT is recognised within Habitat International as a key player within this region because we are the only English-speaking Habitat in this area.”

She said they were recently tapped as the point lead in the English-speaking Caribbean for Habitat International, “which essentially means any disaster within the English-speaking Caribbean which involves recovery for shelters and housing will be led by Habitat TT.

Habitat for Humanity has a suite of services it can and has offered to local and regional governments to help countries build back better.

“Most recently and continuing in Dominica we have been working with the Dominican government and the UN International Office for Migration and another international charity to provide capacity building, sorting out their town and country planning issues and also to improve their labour force issues.”

She explained after last year’s devastating hurricane qualified and construction workers left the island in search of work abroad so Habitat TT was asked to recruit skilled labour to work as well as train nationals to upgrade the country’s labour force.

“We took the opportunity, of course, to expand the labour market to include training for women and working with single-parent households. We even went so far as to do things like providing child care for single heads of households to allow them to attend the training, learn how to construct the houses, learn how to earn a living and still be able to meet their responsibilities.”

Habitat TT has 23 members of staff but they collaborate with civil society organisations to recruit the expertise needed. For Dominica she said they recruited heavily from TT and Guyana to gets skilled men to roof work and masonry.

Habitat TT also worked closely with the fenceline communities affected by the closure of state-owned Petrotrin.

“What we have been saying to the corporate sector for the last 24 years is that doing good, is good business.”

She said by supporting communities, companies are improving the conditions of their future customers, of small businesses that could work with them making it a lot easier to do business within the community and improve its bottom line.

The Halo Award will be accepted by Habitat for Humanity International CEO Jonathan Reckford at the Engage for Good conference on May 27-28 2020 in Austin, Texas, USA.

Hutchinson Wallace said the award was recognition from an organisation that is really trying to promote the concept of corporate social responsibility

“It’s a recognition that doing good is a fundamental part of doing good business. It is a recognition when an organisation and a corporate entity, in this case, take time to partner with civil society in their areas, create opportunities to improve the circumstances of the people who depend on the organisations for their livelihood.