It’s not typical to spotlight what’s historically often known as a Company Social Accountability (CSR) report in story type, nonetheless, Sandals’ newest report, “Love Exceeds Expectations,” reads extra like a quick-paced household biography. It begins in 1981, when a proud fifth-generation Jamaican, Gordon “Butch” Stewart, opened the primary Sandals Resort whereas additionally welcoming into the world his son and future govt chairman, Adam Stewart. The Sandals household continued to develop, rooted in the one place they’ve ever referred to as house: the Caribbean. At the moment, with over 20,000 crew members — or as we name them, household, associates, and neighbors — throughout 19 resorts on 9 islands, Sandals is proud to be the most important personal employer within the area.
However what units this CSR story aside is its inclusive spirit: each crew member, visitor, vendor, and companion has a seat on the desk. Collectively, they think about methods to guard the ocean, uplift native communities, assist neighboring colleges, and construct a greater future for the Caribbean. After which, they act. Thus far, these collective efforts have positively impacted greater than 1.7 million lives. For the rising Sandals household, social duty isn’t only a responsibility; it’s a heartfelt expression of affection for the locations they name house, and for these but to find them.
Greater than 40 years into this story, and in honor of Caribbean Heritage Month, we rejoice a few of the moments, milestones, tasks, and initiatives which have keept our “why” entrance and heart:
In a schoolyard with a distant view of the ocean close to the southwest nook of Jamaica, youngsters run on a playground, study new laptop expertise and follow gardening fruits and herbs. That is one among 2,290 colleges within the Caribbean that Sandals and Seashores have supported with greater than 300,000 books, plus computer systems, sports activities tools, small gardens and fruit timber, basketball courts, tutors, air conditioners, and past to raise studying throughout the area. A means of working for the reason that begin, when Stewart opened the model’s flagship resort in Montego Bay, the very first thing he and the workers did was undertake a neighborhood college in want of repairs, books, and provides. College students from that college went on to develop into academics, legal professionals, social staff, and managers at Sandals and past.
Close to an excellent white sand seashore in Turks and Caicos, college students, academics, and native farmers collect with Beaches Turks and Caicos workers across the resort’s compost mound. On an island the place nature offers largely sand, natural kitchen scraps at the moment are handled like a treasure of vitamins for rising crops and crops, fastidiously layered and turned so home-grown meals can flourish from the arid land. By way of Sandals Resorts and the Sandals Basis, the identical classes and methods have unfold to farmers, gardeners, and crew members throughout the Caribbean. Now meals safety is rising and the area grows alongside its crops, exploring and studying new methods to protect its pure produce and recipes that depend on native elements.
Forty toes beneath the ocean’s floor off St. Lucia, native divers and PADI-certified Sandals company have a tendency to a different sort of backyard: coral reefs. Underwater nurseries like this are showing in areas of the Caribbean the place Sandals and its Foundation companion with marine specialists to replenish underwater life, from Jamaica, to Grenada, Bahamas, Curaçao and Saint Lucia. The planting of coral fragments has already proven a 90% success fee because of company and locals doing a world of fine collectively. These applications shift the narrative for locals by giving them the data, expertise, and certifications that empower them to place grow to be their arms and maintain the underwater world that so intently impacts island life and tradition.
In a hospital overlooking a lush Antigua hillside, a mom walks her younger daughter in for a routine checkup. 5 years in the past, the younger woman’s life was saved at this very website, because of a crew of medical doctors and life-giving expertise within the neonatal ward. The hospital is amongst many the Sandals Basis has helped equip. Donations have additionally been directed to pediatric most cancers analysis and to scholarships, so college students can reside out their goals to develop into medical doctors. A lot of them return house to fill medical voids, together with Dr. Chantelle Browne, who studied by means of Sandals-supported SickKids Caribbean Initiative and is now one among solely two pediatric oncologists within the Jap Caribbean.
Beaming with pleasure in a neighborhood in Jamaica, 4 generations have come collectively for a household picture. Smiling ear to ear they showcase wholesome, comfortable smiles. Over the previous 15 years, Sandals has partnered with Nice Form! Inc. to offer dental care by means of its 1,000 Smiles and Sealants initiative and eye care by means of its iCARE program for practically 300,000 folks within the Caribbean. The brilliant smiles and targeted eyes deliver newfound confidence, pleasure, and day by day ease.
Up a mountainside an hour from Kingston, women and men craft baskets and hats with a reed plant that grows close by. In the meantime, down the mountainside, on a Trench City road, two teenage boys stroll into a house doubling as a stone artisan workshop. The house owner and grasp artisan provides apprenticeships inspiring the kids to sometime do the identical for others. There are comparable studios across the island, the place the Sandals retail division offers enterprise coaching and opens doorways into markets, together with resort reward retailers, whereas working intently with artists to protect the traditions of their crafts. Income generated in reward retailers are invested again into this system, which expands self-sustaining entrepreneurship throughout the area.
Earlier than a Soca Dance Class at Sandals Royal Curaçao, a younger girl arrives for work feeling impressed. She’s among the many 20,000 Sandals and Seashores crew members who’ve taken free programs by means of Sandals Company College because it was based in 2012. The college opens pathways to lengthy lasting careers and new expertise from administration to social media, culinary, wellness and past. Sandals Resorts has supplied an additional shiny beacon for girls, as they make up 51.3% of the corporate’s whole workforce, greater than half of them in administration positions. By way of help from the Sandals Basis, Caribbean girls are additionally being given entry to extra assets that enable them to follow and study tech expertise to allow them to enter higher-paying STEM fields.
At a faculty surrounded by banana timber and open farmland, a roof is being measured for the set up of photo voltaic panels. As a part of the Sandals Foundation’s Power of 15 initiative, colleges throughout the Caribbean will quickly harness constant energy from the tropics’ most constant supply: the solar. Computer systems and wifi alerts will probably be extra dependable. Carbon footprints will probably be restricted. And extra youngsters within the furthest reaches of the islands can have uninterrupted entry to high quality training.
After over 40 years of calling the Caribbean house, we all know there’s just one technique to function whereas serving our communities and islands: by main with love. That, to us, is greater than our duty. It’s who we’re, it is a celebration of our heritage, and it is our why.
