Corporate Social Responsibility

Since its inception, WSI has held the firm belief that our greatest social responsibility is to be a successful company. This, we believe, is the best way of delivering on our commitments to our franchisees, customers, suppliers, associates, employees and the communities within which we operate our business. We realize that in order to be perceived as a successful company with excellent growth potential, we must practice the highest standards of behaviour and demonstrate our corporate social responsibility through sustained, focused and result oriented activities.

While our global operation in 87 countries offers us a wide range of business opportunities and competitive advantages, it also exposes our company and franchise network to many social, ethical and environmental challenges. In keeping with our objective to be consistently perceived as a good corporate citizen globally, we endeavour to continuously learn about and respect the local culture, customs and best practices in all our business regions.

To that end, our experience and hence, also our long term commitment is to engage people (through employment, franchise network or supplier e-marketplace) with different approaches and skills in leadership and problem solving, innovation and implementation of ideas, relationship building and people management.

We want to help Make Child Poverty History

The “Make Child Poverty History (MCPH)” global outreach program is based on the belief that no one should go hungry; particularly not children whose entire development and future capacity is dependent upon their health and nutrition during childhood. Every child deserves a basic education, clean water and health care. Providing these basic necessities of life will in turn ensure that this generation of children can provide for their families in the future so that the desperation felt today won't continue into tomorrow.

WSI is a proud supporter and founding partner of the Make Child Poverty History initiative. We believe that providing for the basic needs of children must ensure  that:

• No child should go hungry. No adult should either. Hunger not only causes death, the deprivation that millions of people feel every day also depresses productivity making it harder and harder for these people to pull themselves out of the desperate situation they face.
• Having a basic education will allow a child to improve on their situation. Teaching children the skills they need enables them to help themselves, their community and their children.
• Access to clean water and adequate sanitation will save thousands of lives. Each day thousands upon thousands of children die because they drank unsafe water or because drought spurred the famine that claimed their lives.
• Obtaining health care is critical for ensuring that children make it through the crucial first five years of life. Vaccines and immunization will also help spare children from debilitating and/or deadly diseases that can claim their futures.

WSI strongly supports and endorses the MCPH mandate to make child poverty history - one child, one village at a time.

Having begun as a corporate outreach program, MCPH has expanded to encompass individuals and organizations outside of the founding corporation, WSI. It is a non-governmental organization that as a collective specifically targets corporations to encourage them to join the fight to make child poverty history; facilitating their participation by sharing the expertise of members.

MCPH is not a charity. Instead they consider themselves a catalyst - a group of like-minded individuals and corporations who know that the suffering of children can be made a thing of the past if more people joined the campaign to make child poverty history.

For more information on the Make Child Poverty History initiative, please visit www.makechildpovertyhistory.org