Community Involvement & Development
Overview
The Group views community involvement and development as being of significant value to its operations. The Group’s strategy is to ensure that the Group supports and builds a relationship with the community in which it operates and recognises that it is a shareholder in the community, sharing common interests.
The Group aims to provide economic opportunities in the value chain that help alleviate poverty and contribute towards better conditions of life for the community and individuals therein. This includes supporting the national economy through the Group’s key contributions to the fiscal revenues. Our focus is on creating sustainable partnerships with communities in ways that bring longterm benefits and lead to community empowerment and economic independence.
Community Skills Development
Education and culture are the foundations for social and economic development and are part of a community’s identity, on which the Group places considerable value.
The majority of the businesses within the Group give back to their communities by offering attachments and/ or graduate trainee programmes for young people to learn and develop skills in a working environment. The table below summarises the placements offered by each business within the Group during F2023.
Profeeds, together with the Grain Millers Association and other feed and milling industry participants, is participating in developing the Diploma, Bachelors and Masters programmes in Grain Milling Science & Management at Bindura University. The aim of the programmes is to develop a guided learners’ platform that meets industrial skills expectations.
Social Investment
The Group sees community involvement and development through social investment as a significant value to its operations. The Group recognises vulnerable groups and communities within its sphere of influence that have limited capacity to realise their material needs. The Group therefore has on-going commitments for the provision of basic essentials for selected vulnerable groups. In addition to this, as part of our social responsibility program, the Group engages in inclusive business where the Group works with and empowers the disadvantaged and less privileged to
become entrepreneurs involved in commercial enterprise. This is intended to reduce dependency, promote downstream industry and improve local economies.
Working with the Communities
Community Involvement and Development is not restricted to monetary support or quantitative outputs. It can involve being responsive to community development needs and aspirations in a manner that encourages being socially responsible even where non-monetary resources such as staff volunteering and skills transfer are involved.
Charitable Donations
As the majority of the businesses within the Group are food manufacturers, food donations are a vital commitment and give-back to its communities. The chart below represents the group of beneficiaries the various businesses donate to on a regular basis. Orphanages, Retirement Homes and Animal Welfare Centres are the top three beneficiary groups receiving food donations.
In addition to the regular food donations, as a Group, we are very much engaged with the communities we serve. Our social investment also focused on staff welfare and working with the communities we work in. As a result of all these initiatives, the Group spent a total of USD 1 253 895 on its corporate social responsibility (CSR) programmes.
Beneficiary Groups receiving Donations from the Innscor Group of Businesses (%)
