We are a company that, although present in large cities, upholds the purpose of making our services accessible to people in remote and underserved regions. We plan products for this, such as sales of prepaid cell phone plans and sale of unlocked cell phones. We were the first operator to adopt both practices in Brazil’s heartland. This means we are helping to generate employment and income.
The UN’s Human Development report states that new technologies have become crucial to the development process for the whole society, favoring sectors such as healthcare, education and agriculture, all seen as essential in the fight against poverty.
We are partners and one of the sponsors of Instituto Algar, a non-profit organization for developing people and transforming lives in the communities where we are present. For 20 years, the entity has been running structured, medium-term social programs to help educate children, adolescents and young people through education, culture, sports and volunteering.
In 2021, with 86 social organizations, two cultural and six sporting proponents, our programs benefited 4,776 children, teens and young people. In addition, one-off training activities in addition to voluntary actions impacted more than 36,000 people from communities from all over Brazil and three other Latin American countries. R$1.9 million was directly invested for this purpose. Through Algar Institute, we have the following initiatives underway:
We have a multidisciplinary committee consisting of representatives from internal areas, Instituto Algar and Algar Holding, whose task is assessing projects applying for funds awarded under incentive law (spending on cultural activities may be used to offset tax liabilities). Our analysis in this respect checks to ensure that an initiative meets requirements such as getting a regulatory entity’s authorization and being capable of helping develop local communities in which we operate. In 2021, R$3.4 million was allocated to sporting and cultural projects.
Our volunteering program encourages associates to take part in social activities overseen by Algar Institute. Several different volunteering opportunities are available. On the educational front, we are developing ongoing initiatives using our own methods to provide significant learning experiences that benefit students at partner public-system schools.
We also hold so-called specific initiatives, which are broader coverage activities designed by our committees to meet specific needs identified for a community or for specific dates such as Children’s Day or Christmas.
In 2021, we developed 315 specific and ongoing initiatives involving 2,782 volunteers, in addition to 31 committees and 57 leaders and co-leaders, which benefited 28,616 people from 24 cities. There were more than 25,000 items collected, 12 tons of food donated and over 6,000 volunteer hours, totaling more than half a million. (sic)
