GEZE is donating 100,000 euros to a UNICEF project in the Ivory Coast

GEZE is continuing its tradition of supporting sustainable and social projects: this year’s Christmas donation from the door, window, and safety specialist is going to fund an educational and sustainability project by UNICEF in the Republic of the Ivory Coast. The company is donating 100,000 euros to build sustainable and liveable school buildings, which are being constructed with recycled plastic waste in the west African country. 

Sandra Alber, Chief Officer Corporate Strategy & Marketing at GEZE says: As a company, we focus on creating liveable and sustainable buildings. This is why we find this UNICEF project to be such a good fit: the combination of environmental protection, education, and the creation of liveable buildings fits in very well with our corporate principles. This is an outstanding project that we support, based on our strong commitments as a family business.

Environmental protection, education, and liveable buildings: GEZE participates in a unique school construction project 

1.6 million children in Ivory Coast do not attend school and have very little access to educational opportunities. There are far too few schools, and the classrooms that are available are often completely overfilled, with up to 100 children per class. In addition, Ivory Coast has a garbage problem and suffers from extreme environmental pollution. Most plastic waste ends up in unsecured dumps, where it contaminates these children and their parents' living environment. People continuously exposed to these harmful substances suffer from severe damage to their health, which in some cases is even fatal.

UNICEF has developed an innovative concept to solve the problems of waste and poor access to education in Ivory Coast. Since 2018, the organisation has been building sustainable and affordable school buildings using bricks made of recycled plastic waste. UNICEF provided significant funding for the construction of a factory where the bricks can be manufactured on site. This eliminates the added costs and resources needed to import the bricks to Ivory Coast In addition, this has created a recycling market for plastic waste, which has, most importantly, provided an income to women in the region. The easy-to-assemble plastic bricks can be used to construct a classroom in just a few days. The recycled materials are affordable, and help protect the climate: Else, most of the plastic would be burnt and produce harmful climate and environmental pollutants.