Just one more change and a new life

“We don’t have, in our hands, the solutions for every problem in the world, but before every problem in the world, we have our hands”. Friedrich Schiller

Effectively, a world where the citizen makes an effort to help the other is certainly a better, more solidary, and more human world.

Fitting in this context is the EDP Volunteering Program, that exists for over 10 years. It promotes several initiatives, in the axis of energy inclusion, with the purpose to support organizations and institutions in the development of projects fighting against energetic poverty and the promotion of energy efficiency. It’s in this context that the partnership with Just a Change happens.

Mission: To change lives also for energetic comfort

Under the motto of helping those that live in degrading housing situations, Just a Change is born, in 2011, a nonprofit association. That association rebuilds the homes of underprivileged people.

Just a Change can change, and dignify lives, with the help of other institutions and/or companies, such as EDP, namely EDP Comercial.

EDP participates in the acquisition of materials and monitors the implementation of energy-efficient measures. The company offers efficient types of equipment, such as solar self-consumption, and types of equipment for water and appliances. It also finances the acquisition of efficient windows that are essential for the increase of thermal insulation and improvement of the home energy efficiency.

With this partnership, besides the rehabilitation/rebuilding of houses, there is also social work going on. The volunteers carry joy and hope into the lives of the beneficiaries, that get involved in the entirety of the process.

Rebuilding houses and lives

At the origin of Just a Change project, in 2010, was the willingness of two friends that started helping homeless people in Lisbon. Initially, help was centered on food assistance, but rapidly progressed to fighting housing poverty. It’s important to know more about the history of this NGO.

Several volunteers started to team up with these two friends, that have made a difference in the lives of many underprivileged families, offering them more decent housing conditions, that respond to such basic needs as access to a bathroom.

By deploying thousands of volunteers in and out of the country, Just a Change currently counts on hundreds of houses and rebuilt institutions. And it’s precisely here that EDP steps in, by collaborating with the project in 2018 through the Volunteering Program, and since 2019, partnered with EDP Comercial.

The EDP Volunteering Program supports countless initiatives of social, sustainability, and biodiversity protection natures, among many others. These initiatives are promoted in 9 countries where the company is present and has managed teams in EDP Portugal, EDP Spain, EDP Renewables, and EDP Brazil.

A partnership filled with good energy

EDP has been reinforcing this partnership with Just a Change, mainly through the investment in services and types of equipment that promote energy efficiency, from the volunteering activation in Lisbon, Porto, and other areas in Portugal.

The beneficiaries of this project assume more decent, comfortable, and efficient housing conditions, since, beyond the co-funding of the acquisition of materials for housing rehabilitation, EDP Comercial also abides and monitors the implementation of measures of energy efficiency, for example, by identifying improvements through the accomplishment of energetic certifications, before and after construction.

Through this partnership, efficient types of equipment are donated (such as solar auto-consumption and water heaters and appliances) and efficient windows are financed, essential to the increase in thermal comfort and improvement of the energy efficiency of these “new” spaces.

The voluntary energy from EDP has transformed the lives of over 700 beneficiaries, by rehabilitating 40 houses and 10 NGOs. A partnership that revealed to be full of good energies!

Installation of energy efficient equipment

Just a Change and EDP have identified situations of poor housing conditions all over the country, and aim to rehabilitate homes through the reconstruction and installation of energy-efficient equipment. For these courses of action to happen, certain material and human resources are mobilized. EDP donates equipment, monitors installation, and evaluates and attributes energy certificates to the house. This intervention is made, in the majority, with the participation of the company’s workforce that comes forward as volunteers in these actions.

Testimonies: The implication of change in everyone involved

There are several people involved in the Rehabilitation/Rebuilding of houses and lives. Severino Daniel, an EDP volunteer, that had intervened in the electric installation of Maria Amélia’s house, says that providing for someone in need is a joy supplement. 

Guilherme Fogaça, a volunteer that remodelled the living room of this house, shows how rewarding it is to change someone’s life, especially because he watches the situation from the get-go to the final transformation.

Just a Change and EDP give a happy change in the beneficiary and in the volunteer, contributing to attaining this SDG (Sustainable Development Goal), the creation of sustainable cities and communities.

Just a Change with energy efficiency

In 2021, the partnership between EDP and Just a Change, in the rehabilitation and energetic inclusion, the following results:

• the participation of 184 EDP volunteers with 920 hours;
• the existence of 240 beneficiaries (112 private homes and 128 NGO);
• the installation of 25 efficient pieces of equipment;
• the placement of 6 solar panels, self-consumption equipment;
• the attribution of 52 energetic certificates.

Carla Barros, the manager of EDP’s corporate volunteering, states that besides the goal to mitigate degrading housing situations, “more than just intervening in the houses, this project seeks to bring hope to underprivileged families by providing decent housing situations.” 

Impact (results)