Dinant offers support to the Panama community of Aguán Valley
Noticias
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sábado 23 agosto 2014
Dinant offers support to the Panama community of Aguán Valley
More local people to benefit from Dinant’s social improvement programs
Tegucigalpa, Honduras, August 20, 2014: Dinant has operated in the Bajo Aguán for many years and we care deeply about the well being of our employees, the farmers who supply our processing plants, and surrounding communities. During a meeting on 01 of July, Dinant listened to representatives of the Panama community and repeated our offer to provide them with greater social support.
Roger Pineda, spokesman for Dinant said, “Dinant has proud record of raising the living standards, skills, employment levels, health and education of local people. In partnership with community leaders, we are providing technical and financial support for rural electrification, access roads, water and sanitation projects. We finance the employment of 11 teachers in the Leán and Aguán valleys, providing direct education to more than 300 children per year. We provide employees and local people with over 8,000 free medical consultations per year in San Pedro Sula, Leán and the Aguán Valley. We support three health clinics and provide essential medicines to many local people in [location?]. And we recently arranged for 700 local villagers from Zacate Grande to receive free dental treatment. Now we’d like to help the people of the Panama community to receive some of the same benefits and more.”
At the meeting on 01 of July, Roger Pineda expressly acknowledged the universal right of all Hondurans to farm their land as they see fit and repeated Dinant’s offer to help the people of the Panama community to develop their existing lands, as we do for the Pech, Garífuna and Ladino communities.
We invite interested stakeholders to visit Dinant’s operations in the Bajo Aguán to see the results of the extensive resources we are committing to environmental and social management, and community engagement.
About Corporación Dinant
Corporación Dinant is a family-owned consumer products manufacturer founded in Honduras by Miguel Facusse in 1960. Our products are sold throughout Central America and the Dominican Republic, and exported to global markets. Dinant employs almost 8,000 people, directly supporting over 22,000 livelihoods, generating many millions of US$s in exports for the Honduran economy, and contributing significantly to the economies of all countries in which we operate.
Corporación Dinant is making significant progress. We are implementing the criteria laid out in the Voluntary Principles on Security and Human Rights, which govern how we vet, recruit and train our security staff, and how they engage with members of the community. The company recently removed all firearms from security staff at all of its plantation sites. We rigorously benchmark ourselves against the RSPO principles & criteria concerning the economic, environmental and social impact of our African Palm oil business; the sustainability of our supplies; and our engagement with all local stakeholders. And we have improved our Community Engagement Program through such initiatives as stakeholder surveys and formal grievance mechanisms.
August 20, 2014
CORPORATE RELATIONS DEPARTMENT
Media contact: Roger Pineda, roger.pineda@dinant.com, t: +(504) 2239-8800