Dinant’s community engagement program yielding widespread success
Local villages throughout Honduras benefitting from Dinant jobs and financial support Corporación Dinant’s expanded community engagement program is helping local people in some of the poorest parts of Honduras. In partnership with highly qualified social sector consultants, Dinant is investing significant time and resources in stakeholder surveys, local Community Grievance Mechanisms and the recruitment of company liaison staff based at the heart of local communities. Company Spokesman, Roger Pineda, commented, “With a greatly expanded social engagement program, we are building on our local relationships and reaching out to new communities. For 18 months now, Dinant has been making an extra effort to listen to local communities, talk about our work, answer questions, and think hard about improvements we can make to our operations and other ways we can help neighborhoods in need. The results are very encouraging.” Dinant’s regional Community Grievance Mechanisms were established in collaboration with local people to provide members of the public with simple, safe and reliable ways of communicating with the company. Dinant’s professional community liaison staff in Leán have resolved issues like village trash disposal, preventing dust in dry weather, and traffic control. In Comayagua, Dinant’s Grievance Mechanism identified the need to construct an alleyway to provide the Palmerola community with improved access to other villages. And in Aguán, the company resolved issues of property access and the smell of Dinant’s organic fertilizer. Mr. Pineda continued, “While we cannot solve every problem, we are confident that we have the relationships, staff and systems in place to make a real difference to the lives of our neighbors. In addition, we continue to recruit people from local communities to work at our plantations, factories and mills.” Dinant’s dedicated employees have supported local communities in many other ways. In Leán, staff volunteers repaired a bridge and local roads to give residents better access to their properties, gave work experience to students, created a school garden, and organized a soccer tournament for staff and residents. In San Pedro Sula, staff volunteers painted and repaired a school. In Aguán, Dinant donated 100 gallons of fuel to the Trujillo Fire Brigade, and gave 2,500 plants to the “Plant Life”campaign. And in Comayagua, the company conducted health and hygiene workshops for 450 community leaders, and organized and paid for local authorities to spray for mosquitoes in 11 local villages that requested help to protect themselves from the Zika virus. About Corporación Dinant Dinant is a family-owned consumer products manufacturer founded in Honduras in 1960. Its products are sold across Central America and the Dominican Republic, and exported to global markets. The companydirectly employs 7,200 people worldwide, supports over 22,000 livelihoods, generates many millions of US$s in exports for the Honduran economy, and contributes significantly to the economies of all regions and countries in which it operates. Dinant rigorously benchmarks its operations against stringent international standards regarding the economic, environmental and social impact of its African Palm oil business. DINANT’S COMMUNITY ENGAGEMENT PROGRAM YIELDS WIDESPREAD SUCCESS Local villages throughout Honduras benefitting from Dinant jobs and financial support
Local Honduran schoolchildren collect their free backpacks provided by Dinant.
