We are cooperating with the charity organisation Plan Sweden, who works to give children in affected areas a more tolerable life. Yesterday our employees on Kling Cordena left their normal work routine to volunteer!
Yesterday we gathered in Plan Sweden’s premises for a presentation of the organization and its current projects. In this case, we were to become part of the project “Because I am a girl”, working against child marriage. Plan aims to educate and inform in countries where girls as young as 12 may be married off to the parents needing money for their living.
Plan is a non-profit organization that is totally dependent on grants in order to do their work. Our aim is to give our employees real experiences instead of just putting up a penny to a charity and then have a good conscience. Therefore, we drew on our representative clothes and then went out to collect money in Stockholm City. We had two hours in the town, which resulted in a really nice contribution to the project.
Since we did not have any idea what it meant to stand and rattle with a moneybox, it was a little bit shocking to experience how difficult it is to get people to open their hearts and wallets, despite the enormous abundance that we actually have compared with these children. We did not change the world in a day, but now feel stronger than ever that everyone can always do something for someone!
After lunch, we were referred to the various workstations for administrative work which among other things was to register godchildren and godparents, folding folders and insert papers and mailings. These data are strictly necessary for the organization to operate and Plan have a variety of volunteers who do this in their spare time.
We got a good eye opener how it is to stand and collect money from people. The annoying feeling in your stomach when no one meets one’s gaze, where a greeting does not get any response, where people are too busy to stop and take in your message or where someone just finds you disturbing. However, we are overwhelmed by all the lovely meetings and conversations with kind souls who helped to give these children a little better chance in life. We are incredibly grateful for all contributions and also wants to thank Plan Sweden, which allowed us to take part of their organization in order to help where it matters!
