employee volunteering

When I was in 8th grade, I adopted a child…a sponsor child I mean! Her name was Blessing, and she was a young girl who was living in an orphanage in Kenya and needed help. Her mother died of AIDS when she was born and her father was suffering from the same disease. So, at age 14, I decided to gather…

Contributions to this post are also made by Jon-Paul Pritchard, Head of Executive Staffing in the Asia Pacific Japan and China (APJC) region. This week, I and my Cisco colleague Jon-Paul Pritchard will be driving a TUK TUK – which is a small three-wheeled rickshaw-type buggy/taxi – with only 7 hors…

I’ve always had compassion for the plight of many in Africa. I think it started from me being overly sensitive at a young age and taking the old dinner table saying “finish your food, there are starving children in Africa” to heart. This is why I was so touched by Alphonsine Imaniraguha’s story. I c…

Time off to give back. We talk about it on this blog a lot, because employees love the idea of giving back. But a lot of the stories are about going big. Traveling to Honduras, volunteering for the big cats. But the great thing about this time off to give back, is that it doesn’t HAVE to be about go…

An issue I can relate to – the lack of women in cybersecurity. While women represented 25% of computing professionals in 2015, they only represented 10% of the information security professions. Cisco gives us time to volunteer to make a difference in the world where we have a personal stake. I put m…

At its heart, Irish culture has a very strong love of sport. While the Irish are very passionate about it, sometimes our success is disproportionate to the size of our love and our population. But that doesn’t stop us! Because the sporting community has a strong sense of volunteerism, it’s the found…

Cisco has always followed a philosophy of giving back to the community, and in recent years, Cisco China has participated in various community and volunteer programs including: Hands on Shanghai (HOS), River of Hearts (ROH), One Heart Gift Bag, Hiking for One Egg, etc. Giving makes a difference, and…

This Thanksgiving, many of us will celebrate with our friends and family. We’ll gather and enjoy roasted turkey, creamy mashed potatoes, and a slice of grandma’s pumpkin pie for dessert. Unfortunately, 805 million around the world don’t have enough to eat. Last week, I learned that we can change tha…

Three Cisco employees were recently named “Cisco Citizen Teachers of the Year” by Citizen Schools, one of Cisco’s longtime nonprofit education partners. More than 125 volunteers from Cisco have stepped out of their jobs as engineers, sales executives, and technology professionals to become mentors a…