One by One

We have reached an important milestone.

The Amway One by One Campaign for Children has been transforming lives for 10 years.

What started as a corporate initiative in 2003 has become a grassroots movement of Amway distributors and employees helping children around the world. While Amway affiliates build alliances with local partners, it is the 3 million distributors and 20,000 employees who have helped us to bring our efforts for children to scale.

At the end of 2012, we have counted 10 million children who have been positively impacted through Amway One by One.

Actions include building hospital playrooms in Russia, enabling better nutrition at schools in rural China, providing customized bikes for children with disabilities in Australia, constructing homes in Guatemala and mentoring urban youth in the United States. There are more examples in every region where Amway does business.

Amway One by One has always been about inspiring and encouraging individual actions for children in need. Now, looking back over ten years, we see a beautiful mosaic of hope, inspiration and generosity.

Thanks to everyone who has joined Amway to build better lives for children in our communities.

This year, we celebrate these accomplishments and recognize the work of so many Amway people. But we also challenge ourselves to deepen our efforts, and will close the year with a demonstration of collective support for children in need, around the world.

In recent years, Amway Latin America focused its efforts through Amway One by One.

While there are still many grassroots outreach taking place in orphanages and schools, the primary focus has been building homes across the region through Habitat for Humanity, and developing a nutrition program that will soon grow into other surrounding countries.

Here’s what happened in 2012:

In Mexico, 400 children were nourished with Nutrilite Little Bits products and other health services with partner Un Kilo de Ayuda:

120 Amway volunteers continued the annual tradition of traveling to Guatemala. This year, 10 homes were built in Usumatlán:

One special family moved into a new home with support from 29 volunteers in Zambrano, Honduras:

In Tijuana, Mexico, 40 Amway volunteers built 2 homes alongside the families who would live there:

One new home was completed by 10 Amway volunteers in San Isidro de Heredia, Costa Rica:

Another home in La Libertad, El Salvador, was completed by 20 Amway volunteers:

Finally, 15 houses were built by 45 Amway volunteers in São Paulo, Brazil, and a donation was made to build 35 more homes affected by recent flooding:

… which means the tradition will continue in 2013!

Some children need a house.

They may have loving parents or caregivers, but they face barriers: poverty … illiteracy … lack of access to credit … unclear laws or pervasive corruption. They often resort to living in unsafe, overcrowded slums. According to UN-Habitat, One out of every three city dwellers – nearly a billion people – lives in a slum and that number is expected to double in the next 25 years. They need a place of their own.

Some children need a home.

They may be orphaned or abused, living in shelters or on the street. According to UNICEF, there are more than 150 million orphans in the world, many of which do not have consistent, caring adults to look after them. They need people to care for them and a place to call their home.

Fortunately, there are great organizations that are working to provide houses and homes for children around the world.

Amway partners with Habitat for Humanity in ten countries across Latin America, including a multi-country partnership to build an entire neighborhood of homes in Guatemala, working with Amway distributors and employees.

Habitat for Humanity works with local governments to establish clear property ownership for underserved families, many who live in poverty and don’t read well enough to fill out an application for a home loan. Through Habitat, volunteers build homes alongside the families that will live there. The new homeowners are trained on maintenance, finances and build equity to ensure they will have a house for their family for the long term.

For children who have no families, or who have to be removed from their families, Amway works with local governments and nonprofit agencies to help. In Japan, Amway helped to establish a Crop Home for abused children. In South Korea, Amway employees and distributors regularly help out at Child Welfare Centers that care for children. In the Amway hometown of Grand Rapids, Michigan, we provide financial and volunteer support to foster care and adoption agencies that help to provide homes for children.

Amway has also been a longtime supporter of SOS Children’s Villages, which provides a permanent home for orphaned children, which includes a series of homes that make up a village, with each home run by a caring adult. Amway and our employees and distributors have supported and volunteered for SOS Children’s Villages in South Africa, Haiti, South Korea, the United States and China over the years.

A house and a home – many needs, and many ways to help.

Heliópolis is located in the southeast part of São Paulo, in Brazil. The community is divided into 14 plots called “glebas,” where tens of thousands of people live in crowded spaces. It was considered one of the largest slums, or “favelas” in Brazil, but through a process of urbanization, it is improving and now has the status of a neighborhood district.

Amway volunteers have been helping to speed up the development of Heliópolis by remodeling homes for families in need, working with Habitat for Humanity. Last month, 36 Amway Business Owners, employees and suppliers joined Habitat to remodel 15 homes, working alongside the home owners.

Here is a short video documenting their efforts:

Thanks to Nancy Cortez for sharing this story.

Last year, we introduced the Nutrilite Little Bits program to Amway Business Owners and employees in Mexico, in partnership with Un Kilo de Ayuda.

Victor and Eli Estrada, Victoria Cervantes and Francisco Medina were our Star Sponsors recognized for their outstanding participation in the program. They were recently invited to make a delivery of Nutrilite Little Bits in Villa Victoria.

That day, children received check ups from Un Kilo de Ayuda health staff, monitoring the children’s weight, size and hemoglobin content in blood.

Currently, 357 children participate in the program, and we plan to expand our reach when the sponsorship program is renewed this summer.

Thanks to all of the dedicated Amway employees and business owners who are making a profound difference in the lives of these children.

Thanks to Nancy Cortez for sharing this story.

For 120 Amway distributors and employees in Guatemala, their annual trip ended with tired bodies and happy hearts.

They came from across Latin America, the Caribbean and the United States to begin construction on an entire neighborhood of 40 homes in Usumatán, with land purchased by Amway and top Amway distributor Tim Foley.

This week in, ten of those homes took shape for local families, many who will own a home for the first time in their lives.

The volunteer group gets bigger every year, and as the volunteers make their way home, they are already talking about what they might be able to accomplish during next year’s trip.

Thanks to Nancy Cortez for her remote reporting from Guatemala.

Note: Originally posted incorrectly as 12 homes – corrected to 10 homes on 3/4/2012. -JH

A group of Amway employees and Business Owners are making their annual journey to Zacapa, Guatemala, where they begin work on a new neighborhood of houses sponsored by Amway and Tim Foley.

This week, more than 120 Amway volunteers from the US and Central America - the largest Habitat for Humanity group ever in Guatemala – are working on the building of 10 homes alongside the homeowners and their families. It’s hard work, but great experiences for the volunteers and the families.

We will post an update next week!

Closing out a week of stories about homes, we travel to Guatemala. However, this story encompasses many countries, because many Amway distributors and employees were part of this project.

It started with a group of Amway distributors from the United States, who travel to Guatemala every year to help build homes through Habitat for Humanity.

Last February, the program was brought to a greater scale, when Amway distributors and Amway Guatemala invited the wider Amway family to participate. Amway distributors and employees from the United States, Mexico, Barbados, Guatemala, Costa Rica, Puerto Rico, Honduras, Colombia and El Salvador took part in the project, constructing 12 homes for families.

Amway also contributed $500,000 toward the purchase of land, matching the $250,000 gift of Tim Foley, longtime Amway distributor and Amway Founders Council member. This will enable more than 40 homes to be constructed over the next 5 years.

This program was the inspiration for the launch of a formal partnership between Amway and Habitat for Humanity that stretched among the five other countries whose stories we covered this week.

Look for more projects in 2012!

In November, the Amway-Habitat for Humanity campaign extended to Costa Rica through a campaign that raised funds from the sale of select Amway products and through donations of a portion of annual renewal fees.

In total, $15,000 was collected by Amway Costa Rica and donated in November toward the construction of homes for families in Peñas Blancas, San Ramón de Alajuela. Amway volunteers helped in the construction of those homes.

Stay tuned for one of our largest Habitat for Humanity projects in Guatemala, which we will cover tomorrow!

Today’s story takes us further north to Central America – in La Libertad, in the municipality of San José Villanueva.

Amway El Salvador worked with Habitat for Humanity to hold a “Buy a Brick” campaign, where Amway matched donations by its distributors and employees.

More than $14,000 was raised for the project, covering the construction of two homes for families in need.

In October, Amway distributors and employees dedicated three days of volunteer time to build with the families, who now live in their own homes.

Check in tomorrow to see our next project in Costa Rica!