The beneficiary superpower
With the arrival of the spring colors of 2024, I put on the Volies T-shirt, also very colorful and decorated with stories imagined and implemented by the most diverse teams over more than a decade of experience in various markets.
Working under the Volies banner means embracing multidisciplinary challenges of great relevance and interest, in partnership with international teams.
Each initiative launched in Portugal has demonstrated a constant and rapid recruitment of volunteers for our projects and strategies. This is due to the valuable hands-on experience we offer them, as well as our remarkable dedication to each volunteer, to the project and to all the details of each action in which they participate.
For me, there is a fascination and admiration in getting to know NGOs from the inside and working side by side with them. And volunteer actions allow us to align common purposes and objectives. This is undoubtedly the biggest motivating factor.
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The beneficiaries of these actions have a profound impact on the volunteers. They are our (and everyone's) source of inspiration, resilience, courage and strength, with every shared life story, every glance and every outstretched hand that drives us.
L'Oréal, Synopys, Vertex, SAP, Endesa and Repsol: committed companies in Portugal
Among so many actions that will remain forever in our hearts, this Olympic year, we launched several initiatives with very powerful Paralympic sports teams. Such was the case of the L’Oréal volunteers in Portugal, who celebrated their Citizen Day 2024 with a day of inclusive sports where they saw firsthand with the athletes how sport for them is not only exercise, but a source of empowerment, self-confidence and self-improvement.
But this was not all with the group of people with disabilities, we also planted and harvested delicious vegetables with them, as, for example, did the 30 volunteers from Synopys, who collaborated in agricultural activities with the local team of people with intellectual disabilities from Semear, near Lisbon. An organization that promotes the development of competencies of people with intellectual difficulties, implementing programs of psychosocial training, vocational training and socio-professional inclusion.
Together they harvested 250 kg of leeks and more than 2,000 vegetables! And thanks to this collaboration they were able to donate 25 baskets of vegetables to families in socio-economic need. Ending with a twinning meal in the countryside😋.
An activity that the Vertex Portugal team also joined this year! Being part of the daily farming activities for a day, getting to know first hand what their daily life is like and sharing a working day with them to strengthen bonds and their labor and social insertion.
Not to mention painting ceilings and walls in old people’s homes to make them more comfortable, as Synopys volunteers also did in Maia. They gave their all in the matter.
Or the 18 SAP volunteers in Portugal, who built superpower kits for children at the D. Estefânia Pediatric Hospital in Lisbon. Kits that on particularly difficult days will give them back their strength, courage and the power to dream.
Of course, in addition to two of our first collaborators in neighboring Portugal: Fundación Repsol, which every year achieves a great impact throughout its International Volunteer Week with high-impact activities in the country, and this year among the various activities carried out thousands of energy saving kits for vulnerable families. Or the Endesa Foundation, which focused its efforts on supporting schoolchildren with the creation of backpacks and support for the ODS at school campaign .
Beneficiary superpower
It is quite common that, at the end of each volunteer day, one (or more) of the volunteers will ask me: “What is the disability or illness of a particular person? I always answer the same: “They don’t have one, but they have extra patience, extra resilience, extra tenderness and extra gratitude in much higher doses than we do and so, from our time and interaction with them, we take away the batteries.”
This is the lesson I learned and continue to learn: the superpower of the beneficiary is the “extra” factor that allows him to cope with and overcome any problem that depends on him. And there is always one certainty: at the end of each day spent with these people, each of us begins to reflect and relativize more about his own life, and each problem becomes a simple setback that can always be overcome.
I close the first year of activity under the aegis of Volies with a great joy and a great certainty: all those who signed up as volunteers with us this year, when they receive a new call in 2025, will be eager to participate again.
