“This is engaging.” Joan Claver, one of the 1,700 Endesa employees who participate in corporate volunteering, looks at the camera with a humble, almost grateful gesture. These actions are part of the Endesa Foundation, which this year turns 25, with more and more projects and more volunteers. “Everyone who at some point is encouraged to participate usually stays. Then it depends on each person's time availability, but you will always find a project where you can lend a hand.”
Life sometimes deals some complicated cards. Other times, disaster comes from bad decisions in life. To improve the employability and labor integration of people in a situation or risk of social exclusion, the 'Changing Lives' project was born in 2016. The balance of its first six years could not be more positive: 2,275 people have been served, generating 2,378 contracts for people in social exclusion. Actions that would not have been possible without the altruistic cooperation of 181 volunteer Endesa employees, to which must be added 284 social entities and 241 contracting companies.
Behind every new job there is a story, some crooked lines and bad luck situations. “We are not here to judge anyone, but to lend a hand,” says Claver. He remembers the case of a former prisoner whom he accompanied in his reintegration process. “He had served a twenty-year sentence, come on, he had serious crimes. He was aware of his mistakes and wanted to reintegrate into society. He had previous knowledge of running a cafeteria and in prison he had been in charge of the commissary. “We took advantage of that management capacity, of his gift for coordinating a team of people to look for employment by enhancing those capabilities,” he recalls.
As he talks, other stories with names come to mind where the help of volunteers was key to giving a second chance. “We accompanied a young North African woman with a very difficult past on her arrival to Spain, including abuse from her partner. She ended up studying a higher education cycle and finding a job. Something similar happened to us with a man who in the previous crisis had fallen into drugs and alcohol. His family had considered it impossible and he was in a destructive spiral. Thanks to the work of the Endesa Foundation and the Integra Foundation through the 'Changing Lives' program, he got a job as a gardener and, with it, regained his self-esteem,” he recalls.
They are small stories that go unnoticed by the rest of society. “For us, each one of them is a person with a first and last name. And it is a triumph. This is not about numbers, it's lives. Hence the name of the project: 'Changing Lives'.” Like him, another 70 Endesa volunteers participated in 2022 in a training and empowerment campaign in Catalonia, Aragon, Andalusia, Madrid and the Balearic Islands.
Precisely, one of the five videos by the popularizer and YouTuber Javier Santaolalla has focused on these people who help other people, who is helping the Endesa Foundation to spread its lines of work, such as education, training for employment, culture, biodiversity. , and, of course, corporate volunteering.
The arrival of this security expert to volunteering occurred by chance. “Due to the duties of my position, I have to coordinate many of the events at Endesa's Madrid headquarters. There I learned about projects such as Savia, Reto Tech and many others organized by the Foundation. I established a very good relationship with those who put them together and one day I started collaborating with them,” he says.
That has been several years since and he has been involved in all types of campaigns: from the typical Christmas actions to book collections and collaborations on the ground with the Red Cross to help request the social bonus (help to pay the electricity bill). ) to members of groups at risk of exclusion. “Those of us on this side are lucky to live comfortably. You are not aware that you stop having your feet on the ground. These actions open your eyes to a parallel reality, very raw and very human. And you learn very quickly that you can also contribute,” he says. Sometimes he has to teach how to ask for help to immigrants who came to our country fleeing war or hunger and barely speak Spanish. Other times it is about refocusing a resume for people “in a complex situation” to access the labor market. Or to advise them on how to face a job interview.
“It's not about just giving money. It is not subsidizing, but rather showing them tools to fend for themselves and accompanying them on that path of personal development,” she points out. The volunteers put the enthusiasm and the time. The company is responsible for providing the necessary training to deal with cases that, on many occasions, “leave you shaken. There are real personal dramas. They take you out of your comfort zone and you realize that for many, paying 50-80 euros a month on their electricity bill means the difference between eating or not having the resources to feed their children.”
The Endesa Foundation develops its corporate volunteering actions in two large blocks: the reduction of social inequalities and the fight against climate change. In the latter, garbage collection days are organized in river beds, helping birds nest... The other major pillar includes actions to alleviate loneliness, integration difficulties or the feeling of not caring about anyone that plagues many adolescents at risk of exclusion. “There are not only the large actions organized by the company. Entrepreneurial volunteering among employees is also encouraged. For example, a fellow mountain enthusiast has organized a climbing day with immigrant kids and other groups with problems. In a playful way, they learn the value of teamwork, the feeling of belonging to a group and the need for effort to reach the top,” Claver emphasizes.
In 2022, the Endesa Foundation launched 11 corporate volunteering initiatives, in which 1,702 volunteer employees participated, and from which more than 20,740 people benefited. Many of these stocks will never make headlines, but that's not their goal. They are silent tasks “to give a voice to those who feel that no one is listening to them. Sharing a day cooking with elderly people who are very alone, hugging them and sharing laughter between bites, or having a day of games with children whose parents are in jail may seem like a small thing, but for them it means everything. It helps them not feel outside of society,” says this worker proudly. And he concludes: “There is a before and after in the life of every volunteer. It's not that you help change lives. This changes you too.”
