Worldwide Flight Services’ new BOOST programme to develop, motivate, engage and retain its next generation of business leaders sent a team of 15 ‘talents’ to help organise a three-day football tournament for under-privileged children in India in partnership with the Parikrma Humanity Foundation.
The charity’s Parikrma Champions League in Bangalore is one of the country’s most coveted inter-school events, attracting 16 teams from the city as well as other states in India and Dubai. The competition took place in one of the city’s finest stadiums, giving the children the full professional football experience of using the players’ tunnel, playing on an artificial pitch, and seeing their names lit up on an electronic scoreboard. Now in its ninth year, the tournament is one of the highlights of the year for the children.
The 15-strong WFS BOOST team used all their operational skills to help ensure everything was in place to deliver a successful event and to keep the activities on schedule, working alongside representatives from the Foundation, an NGO providing nutrition, healthcare and education for 2,000 children from the slum communities in Bangalore.
Fabienne Bricaud, Head of People at WFS, said: “We are extremely proud to have supported the Parikrma Champions League. This initiative forms a key component of the WFS corporate social responsibility programme and was chosen as the launch event for our global ‘BOOST’ talent development programme. We need our leaders to be confident and skilled in how they deliver business results through the people they lead, manage and work with. As a global business we need to constantly work together across physical and cultural boundaries and look to achieve greater collaboration and impact in the way we communicate and interact with others. As an integrated programme, BOOST is focused on helping every participant to understand what the ‘next level’ of leadership looks like, whilst supporting their preparation to step up. As an ambitious and growing global company, it is going to be pivotal in sustaining our success.”
Shawnpaul Booth, VP Business Performance and Operations Support, North America, and a member of the WFS BOOST team in Bangalore, commented: “This was a tremendous experience for all of us. Working together with our Parikrma counterparts, and trying to forge a team with such a culturally diverse background in just a few days to ensure we organized the best Parikrma Champions League ever, was a great leadership challenge and it was amazing to see how everyone used compassion first and foremost to ensure we quickly built relationships and became a team working towards one goal. Visiting the schools, seeing where the children lived, and experiencing their brilliant potential first-hand was extremely humbling and shows the true power of empathy, opportunity, and perseverance in any environment. The project also provided a great opportunity to build relationships with the other 14 senior WFS leaders from all over the world and many lifelong friendships were made.”
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