HUMANA - Foundation People to People "Clothes that become local support"

A. The main facts about the activities of the company.

Humana Fundación Pueblo para Pueblo Spain is a Non-Governmental Development Organization (NGO) that, since 1987, promotes environmental protection and has carried out cooperation projects in various countries in sub-Saharan Africa, South America, and Asia. The projects’ common goals are to promote training, education, and the development of the beneficiary communities.

The company supports its projects through clothes recycling and at the same time they protect the environment. Humana Fundación Pueblo para Pueblo is part of the Federation for Associations connected to the International Humana People to People Movement, which is a global association that includes a great number of Humana companies around the world.
This business consists of recollecting used clothes in order to sell them at second hand and get funds or on the other side, to sell it in underdeveloped countries through local businesses helping in the development of the local economy. At the same time, they carry out diverse development projects in those countries.
Among their values we could highlight development aid, social responsibility, commitment to the environment, sustainability, solidarity, transparency, integrity, and independence.

B. The Ethical challenges this company is addressing.

Humana-Spain has different projects to address ethical challenges:
1. Cooperation for development: Promote training, education and the development of communities in developing countries. The development projects implemented are in these areas:
 Education
 Agricultural and Rural Development
 Community Development
 Renewable Energy
 Diseases
 Emergency and Assistance

2. The main goal is environmental protection. One of the main sources of funding comes from selling secondhand clothing and shoes. These activities promote sustainability and environmental friendliness. They want to promote the 3Rs for environment, which are:
 Reduce the volume of clothing that goes to waste
 Reuse the majority of clothing discarded
 Recycle clothes that are in bad state so they can be transformed in other products.

3. Global Citizenship. They want to raise Environmental awareness of Spanish citizens through various programs of Development Education. Aspects such as respect for the environment, recycling, encouraging the reuse and recovery.

4. Agricultural and food security projects in southern countries. They do activities like organic farming, obtaining products for own consumption

C. What makes you believe this company is really ethical and why you trust it?

In comparison with other similar business, what Humana does is not only carrying out cooperation projects in underdeveloped areas, but it goes beyond these ventures. They carry out their project through the promotion of the protection of the environment.

Their projects for development are implemented on the fields of education, agricultural and rural development, community development, renewable energy, diseases and emergency and assistance. In order to promote the cooperation and protection of the environment, their main funds come from collecting and selling second hand clothing throughout their stores, this way they stay devoted to the “3 R’s”. Through their ideas and activities they raise awareness among the Spanish people. They also carry out programs of Development Education for schoolchildren, their families and other local groups with sensitivity to these initiatives. Finally, Humana has started an Agricultural and Security project in Spain inspired on others projects in other countries. Through their organic farming and obtaining products for own consumption they demonstrate another way of endowing more value to their main activity.

D.The possible challenges facing the company in the future and how you think this company may improve.

One of the possible challenges they could face if they keep growing, is the impossibility of really managing each project correctly. What happens is that they are working with a vast range of development activities and projects focused in various areas such as education, agriculture, health... Therefore they could lose efficiency.

They could open new stores in Spain. Nowadays they only have operating shops in Barcelona, Madrid, Seville, and Granada. It would be good for the future to open more stores in other cities of Spain so they can expand their business in the country.

Perhaps they could as well do more marketing, since the company is not very popular among the Spanish people. We have found they have been carrying out a tour of social farming photographic exhibition around cities and towns across Spain, but still there is no awareness about the clothes’ shops that are the main source of funds. So a future goal could be getting people to know more about the company, what they sell and what their goals are.