Getting down and dirty

Ecoserv has earned a reputation for uplifting the community in which they serve and recently their staff proved that when it comes to social responsibility, there is no task too big or too small for them. Instead of a general teambuilding exercise for the second half of the year, the company decided to use their skills to help a worthy cause, in the form of a national initiative called “Do it Day”. They were prepared to go in and get more than just their hands dirty!

“I had read about the Greater Good South Africa project, which aims to bring good causes and committed givers together and felt that ‘Do it Day', a national day they put together to help disadvantaged communities or charities, was a brilliant initiative,” says Ecoserv MD Quentin Hurt.

We took the day out to paint a community centre on the south coast near Port Shepstone

Ecoserv pledged to paint the inside offices of Ziphakamise, a group enterprise operating in Southern KwaZulu-Natal (Ugu & Sisonke District Municipality). Ziphakamise assists and empowers communities through development and training.

“This particular “Do it Day” challenge was the one challenge in KwaZulu-Natal of a size that we could take on. One of our pledges is education, specifically lifestyle education. It fitted right in with what we do,” says Hurt.

“We had a fantastic response internally. All of us tend to work separately and we seldom get to work with our staff from other offices, so it ended up being a great teambuilding exercise. Staff from our Johannesburg , Richards Bay and Cape Town offices traveled to Durban for the weekend. I feel it is important that all businesses provide community support by getting involved in projects of this nature,” Hurt says.

“Ecoserv is involved in the Richmond Marianhill Conservancy. In Merebank we sponsor a 10 km road race and we collect waste paper for recycling for schools. All of these projects develop over time. We thought the painting project provided a great opportunity for us to see the direct impact of our giving."

“The first challenge we had to overcome was the fact that we knew nothing about painting, so we hired a painting contractor to manage the process. A lot of preparation was required by both us and the contractors. We first of all used our contacts in the industry for recycled material - Astrapak donated plastic sheeting, while paint was donated by Prominent Paints. Keeping the environmental aspect in consideration, we used water based paints as opposed to solvent-based,” says Hurt.

Organiser and participant, Ecoserv's Michelle Watson says, “Twenty-four of us took part painting of the Ziphakamise offices.  On arrival it rained, which wasn't such a great start. The project looked quite challenging as there were about fourteen rooms, but we got straight into it. It was a big job and we had to speed up the second half of the day to make sure the job was completed, which is was! We'd definitely consider doing something similar in the future.”

“Being able to see the end result gave us a real sense of achievement. We certainly plan to stay in touch with Ziphakamise. We will look for other projects where we have the opportunity to work as team, specifically something with environmental impact,” says Hurt.

“It was a great experience for us all,” says Ziphakamise 's Gayle Campkin. “Ecoserv sponsored all the material and came with 24 volunteers from Richards Bay , Cape Town , Johannesburg and Durban . Judging from the outside, everybody had a lot of fun and just managed to complete in the time available. We had requested help last year already, but had no response, so we were extremely glad that Ecoserv chose us as the target of their charity. Our offices have not been painted on the inside for eight years, now we have tranquil white ceilings and blue walls.”

Ecoserv would like to thank Different Strokes Painters, Belinda Baird, Prominent Paints and Astropak for their involvement in making the day such a success.

For further information visit www.ziphakamise.org.za .