Social justice: a sustainable investment
Every year, on February 20th, the United Nations raises awareness concerning exclusion and inequality in the world. On World Day of Social Justice, everyone should be reminded of how to support integration, inclusion and equality.
But what does social justice in a country actually mean? What projects or philosophies exist that may still be ahead of the time, but actually should not be? Here are three aspects from some of our Green Pearls members, how social justice can be done.
1. Inclusion: supporting people with disabilities
People with disabilities face many difficulties when looking for jobs. Many jobs require to be mobile – but in Germany, it is very difficult for people with handicaps to get access to a car without a full-time job. It is a mind-boggling circle!
Green City Hotel Vauban in the city of Freiburg is a positive example for social justice. The green hotel is an inclusion hotel, meaning that people with disabilities are employed and work along side employees without. In fact, half of the employees, who work at the green hotel are peoples with disabilities.
At Gloria Verde Resort in Turkey, people with down syndrome are offered educational and employment opportunities. This way, they receive an authentic and great chance to be integrated into daily life – something that is unfortunately not yet a standard.
The best part: these are successful concepts! Visitors are thrilled, when they arrive at the hotel and find out that it is not only sustainable in terms of the environment, but also concerning social justice.
As one employee describes in an interview on her work at Green City Hotel Vauban:
The daily hotel business is actually not comparable with other hotels. It does get stressful here, too, from time to time, but the social interaction among us all is always top priority.
2. Local employment: supporting the local people
In order to strengthen the country, it is an important task to include local communities and people and support them to carry their country forward. Because without local people, what would happen to the culture and the country? Right, it would simply disappear!
Sol Beach House Benoa in Indonesia has understood this fact and thus employs only local people! During the hiring process, no social, gender or racial discrimination of any kind is practiced nor supported. The Balinese staff is also trained concerning sustainability, while involving local people in decisions as well.
An own team designed to involve the local community creates cooperations with local people. For example, the local fisherman near the hotel is integrated directly into the hotel business.
For those interested (and access to German television) to find out more about Sol Beach House Benoa, there will be television segment on HR at 8:15pm on the green Balinese dream destination. Be sure to tune in, if you can!
3. Education investment: Children are the future
To secure the future, it is important to offer the young generations the tools they need to be educated and successful adults. Here, it is vital to do this within the own country, to keep the young generation in the home land, to strengthen it from the inside. The children today, are the decision makers of tomorrow!
The Pavilions Himalayas donate regularly to the community school, while also doing own charitable work with Right4Children and The Pavilions Foundation. The Nepalese owners have been committed to social projects for the past 20 years and their ultimate goal is to provide 70% of their net profits for those after the current loans are retired!
Also, they want to achieve that 50% of the families from the village are employed directly at the resort.
The remaining 50% shall be taught a specific skill and supported in creating their own businesses to support the resort in the produce it needs.
Cooperative social responsibility is also a big thing for our friends at The Tongsai Bay. They interact, support and share their knowledge with local children and they can learn about local trees and planting trees directly in the resort. The Thai employees from the resort also teach garbage management awareness at selected schools.
They make sure that even the small ones learn the importance of the environment and its protection.
What do you think should be done more concerning social justice? We are happy to hear your ideas in the comments below!
