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Honoring our colleague Carla Jones with the first Social Impact Award Winner

In October, we launched the Carla Jones Social Impact Award to honor our former colleague Carla Jones, former head of Thomson Reuters’ Social Impact team, and to celebrate her passion for social issues and commitment to volunteerism.

We received applications from employees across the globe, showcasing their incredible passion for volunteering and making a difference in their communities. It was inspiring to see the hard work and dedication our teammates provided for causes and organizations near and dear to their hearts.

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We are pleased to announce that the winner of the 2020 Carla Jones Social Impact Award is our Global Volunteer Network in Manila!

Global Volunteer Network Manila's partnership with Voice of the Free started in 2017. Voice of the Free is a non-profit NGO in the Philippines that rescues survivors (majority of which are young girls) of human trafficking, modern slavery, cybersex and forced labor. Their partnership has generated great awareness and strong advocacy among employees to address the prevalence of slavery, human trafficking, and sexual exploitation of children in the Philippines. During their numerous acts of volunteering with the organization, employees leveraged their professional expertise (legal rights, financial literacy, foreign languages, goal-setting, mentoring) and personal passions (arts and crafts, storytelling, dance, sports, self-defense, women empowerment) in teaching survivors much-needed skills. These interactions with the employees made the young survivors feel loved, empowered and inspired to move forward with their lives through education and confidence-building activities. Many of the girls are set to finish grade school and high school successfully and are looking forward to rejoining their families or continuing to college.

In total, the Manila team has logged over 4,200 volunteer hours. Through the Matching Gifts, Volunteer Grants, and Community Champion Grants programs, the group helped the organization build a Healing Farm, which helped survivors learn how to grow their food and sell them for livelihood. Also, the partnership inspired other companies and organizations in the Philippines to support this cause.

Thomson Reuters will make a $10,000 USD donation to the non-profit organization of the team’s choice, Voice of the Free. We congratulate the Manila Global Volunteer Network on their exceptional volunteer efforts!