Drees & Sommer employees have a history of supporting community and environmental projects. Their involvement often continues to this day – as is the case with three projects in Africa and South America.
Drees & Sommer employees have supported many community and environmental projects around the world in the past. Often, what initially began as a one-off project has turned into an ongoing involvement.
One such example is the Rising Star Primary School in Zimbabwe. In 2019, Drees & Sommer donated €5,000 to Ingenieure ohne Grenzen (Engineers Without Borders, EWB), the project sponsor, to cofinance the fourth stage of a new school building. This allowed the purchase of 26,315 bricks and the completion of three more classrooms. In addition, Alessa Preis – an EWB member then working at Drees & Sommer France – spent her annual vacation in Hopley supporting the project.
Further stages are planned for 2020. Drees & Sommer is also supporting these projects with funding and know-how: The company has donated €1,000 for the roof – including the roof truss – of one of the five new classrooms!
After some bureaucratic delays, the groundbreaking ceremony for the new Uhuru Community Center in Kenya was held at the beginning of May 2019. A two-storey assembly building was constructed without the use of machinery – a huge achievement on the part of the construction team and project manager Davies Okombo!
In February 2020, all Uhuru projects will move to the center of the local community. The opening ceremony will be held on April 7, 2020.
At the beginning of 2020, the building is in the final phase of completion, says Drees & Summer colleague Mathias Neubauer: “Floor-laying and installation of window glass are in full swing. The move into the building in February is in sight.”
The €1,000 donation from Drees & Sommer will be used to enclose the property, probably with a fence.
In 2019, Jara Alber helped with the construction of a community center for ‘everyone’ at the Across project in La Palomera district, located south of Caracas (Venezuela). An existing – rather dilapidated – building is currently being refurbished for this purpose. The center is the only place where people can gather and organize as a community. Directly behind the small building, which is managed by the municipal council, is a 400-square-meter construction site with two building shells that will form extensions to the center. Drees & Sommer will continue to support the project in 2020, with a targeted donation for electrical installations in the buildings.
