Agroamerica invited community leaders to participate in a Corporate Social Responsibility workshop (CRS) sponsored by Centrarse

Guatemala, August 2011. A group of community leaders from Escuintla were invited by Agroamérica to participate in the workshop: “Introducing CSR in Communities.” This workshop was part of the annual Responsible Businesses in Guatemala conference organized by the Centrarse Association.

The participating community leaders came from four rural areas in the Department of Escuintla: San Francisco Madre Vieja, Huitzizil, El Jabalí and San José Mogollón. During the training sessions, the attendees were introduced to the work done by the CSR arm of Agroamérica in addition to learning about the banana production process. They learned about corporate social responsibility programs in general, and above all, their communities” concerns and needs were communicated to the representatives from Agroamérica. The participants also took advantage of this opportunity to make contacts with people involved in other development projects during the conference.

Nelson Recinos, COCODE Secretary and Director of the Huitzitzil school said, “Agroamérica has always supported us with infrastructure projects and training that aids in the development of the entire community. Working together with Agroamérica and the community, we can make real progress.” Maria Teresa Orellana, member of COCODE and a community nurse expressed her appreciation to Agroamérica for the invitation to the workshop that included very relevant information for her community. She added that thanks to Agroamérica, which employs her husband and her son, her family was “able to eat.”
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* CentraRSE is an organization founded in 2003 that includes over 100 member companies whose business interests cover more than 20 different sectors of the Guatemalan economy and provide employment to over 150,000 families. This group of socially responsible companies is one of the most influential entities in Guatemala as well as in the entire Central American region.