Sustainability: At the Forefront of Coca-Cola FEMSA Philippines’ Community Building Efforts
Coca-Cola FEMSA (KOF) corporate
affairs director Jose Ramon De Jesus Martinez Alonzo recently, made his first
visit to the Philippines on official business. One advocacy took center stage
in his itinerary— sustainability, which he believes is an integral aspect in
KOF’s shared journey with the communities in which they operate.
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The Coca-Cola FEMSA Team, led by Jose Ramon De Jesus Martinez Alonso,
poses with the Teach for the Philippines team, led by Margarita Delgado.
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“Our advocacies in the
Philippines have to do with education and environmental consciousness,” said
Martinez. “Coca-Cola FEMSA is always thinking of how we can help nurture generations
of kids that take care of water, that recycle, that know about proper
nutrition. And the best vehicle to do this is education. This, we believe, is a
natural part of the journey to progress, which we share with the communities
with whom we work.”
Partnership Between KOF-PH and Teach for the Philippines
Martinez met with Coca-Cola
FEMSA’s partners in implementing the Coordinates for Life (CFL) program, Teach
for the Philippines (TFP), an NGO whose vision is to provide children with
access to relevant and excellent education.
CFL is an education program
originally launched by Coca-Cola FEMSA in Mexico, which seeks to go beyond
academics, equipping children with values roadmaps that can help them develop
maturity, discipline, and the ability to cope with the challenges of growing
up. The program was
launched in the Philippines in 2014, and will be implemented nationwide this
year.
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| Martinez speaks to Delgado in the Teach for the Philippines office |
Martinez sat down with Margarita
Delgado, TFP co-founder, to discuss their experiences with education, and both
of them quickly acknowledged the need for a holistic education that prizes
values and morals as much as it does on traditional academics.
“When Teach for the Philippines
started, we realized that our teachers could not teach academic lessons
effectively in the classrooms, because the students were in dire need of basic
life skills and behavioral management,” Delgado said. “Aside from focusing on
teaching academic lessons, the development of life skills in our students is
essential for them to become responsible and independent adults.”
“TFP partnered with Coca-Cola
FEMSA to implement CFL because we strongly believe that the program can help
build in our students the resilience they need to face and overcome the
challenges of poverty, which impede them from attaining opportunities for
success,” she continued.
“We found, with Teach for the
Philippines, a perfect match with our initiative,” added Martinez. “This
program is really good because Teach for the Philippines has the agenda of
teaching kids, while our CFL program at Coca-Cola FEMSA provides tools to
orient families about values, and about how they can grow as a family and help
their kids. So we are sharing this journey with not only the community, but
also with like-minded organizations.”
Coca-Cola FEMSA Philippines’ Invaluable Contribution to Gat Andres
Elementary School in Taguig
Martinez’s trip to the
Philippines also took him to Gat Andres Elementary School in Taguig City. The
school is one of the primary beneficiaries of Fort Bonifacio Development
Foundation’s Adopt A School Program.
In line with its philosophy of
helping improve education by looking beyond academics, KOF-PH, whose office is
based in Bonifacio Global City, immediately agreed to sponsor the construction
of the school’s guidance office and clinic. Martinez visited the school to
inspect the donated facilities, and to meet and interact with some of the
teachers and students.
“KOF-PH has been a huge help to us,” said school
principal Felix Alviar. “There really has been a huge improvement, thanks to
the help of stakeholders and the Taguig local government. If you saw this place
just a few years ago, it was just a lot of unused land. Now it’s much better.”
“The best part is, now that we
have a clinic and a guidance office, the LGU has also assigned regular
employees here. We have guidance counselors and dentists now, and soon, I think
they’ll provide us with a dental chair,” said Alviar.
Martinez emphasized that all
these initiatives by KOF-PH stem from a long history of creating what the
company refers to as “social value.”
“The people who founded this
company 126 years ago were big entrepreneurs,” said Martinez. “The company has
faced a lot of difficulties in that time, with the Mexican Revolution in the
early 19th century, and with the Great Depression in the United
States. After the company fell down again, our founder thought of how to create
something that goes beyond profits. He decided to focus on creating social
value.”
“We are working to give our
small part in a big journey to improve education,” said Martinez. “This is one
of the major ways for us to help the Philippines.”
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