As a responsible operator, Orange Belgium is fully dedicated to offering its support to the people who were affected by the floods this summer in Belgium and who, almost 3 months later, still need help. The company therefore collected as much material help as possible: after offering more than 350 palettes of first need goods (clothes, sanitary products, pet food), it will now offer about 10 tons of furniture and electronic devices.
After the emergency, the re-construction. The municipalities affected by this summer’s floods face a huge challenge and can use any help. In a first phase, Orange Belgium focused on the most urgent: its teams worked tirelessly to restore the network in the affected areas and offered free connectivity to help the victims stay in touch with their relatives and organize themselves. It also provided dozens of FlyBoxes (4G-modem for wireless fixed connectivity) to affected customers who were deprived of their fixed connections. At the same time, it launched a massive collection of first need goods in its shops, which resulted in the distribution of more than 17 tons of goods to local associations (clothes, sanitary products, pet food). It also offered free mobile connectivity to local administrations which had lost their fixed connections, so they could keep on functioning and help their citizens.
Orange Belgium now goes one step further by offering about 10 tons of furniture to the affected municipalities: tables, seats, cupboards, office supplies which could all be used to refurbish schools, administrations, … Orange Belgium will also offer more than hundred computers to organizations in the affected areas. The allocation and further logistics are under discussion with the Red Cross to optimize the support to the affected municipalities.
Conscious of the fact that its employees were also willing to help, Orange Belgium reminded all its workforce that they were allowed to use a “volunteering day”, meaning they can take a paid vacation of one day to support charity or humanitarian purposes, for instance. In this case, it already translated in more than 15 employees using this opportunity to help on the affected spots.