Zuinig of society.
Zeeman School.
At Zeeman, we are zuinig of talent and ambition. We train our employees and give them opportunities to grow. For many years now, the Zeeman School has given our store personnel the opportunity to obtain a vocational education or to take part in an internal workshop.
Save the Children India.
At Zeeman, we are zuinig of talent and ambition. We train our employees and give them opportunities to grow. For many years now, the Zeeman School has given our store personnel the opportunity to obtain a vocational education or to take part in an internal workshop.
Save Our Sisters India and Bangladesh.
Another project by Save the Children India which Zeeman has been involved in since 2009 is: Save Our Sisters India, which is dedicated to combating the trafficking of girls and supporting its victims. Zeeman's support during the years 2017 to 2019 was used for a project in which the most vulnerable girls living in districts of Mumbai where prostitution is widespread are taught to be resilient and receive an education so that they do not involuntarily end up in prostitution.
Now that this project is running well, another sponsor has been found for it, so that for the year 2020 a new activity could be started with this sponsorship, namely the repatriation project. Girls who involuntarily ended up in prostitution and were subsequently freed receive an education through the Save Our Sisters project, after which they tend to wish to return to the area they were born in. That's often in another country, like Bangladesh. This often results in various difficulties (legal, transportation, borders), so it often takes a very long time for the girls to return home. Work is now underway to create an infrastructure that will allow the girls to return home more quickly so they can resume their normal lives.
In August 2019, Zeeman also launched Save Our Sisters Bangladesh. Just outside the capital city of Dhaka, a shelter for girls who were trafficked and ended up in prostitution is receiving our support. As in India, training is provided so that the girls can have new opportunities.
Donations.
We almost never have unsold goods. If there is anything left over, we put it on clearance. If anything remains unsold even then, or if we have items that we can't sell for any other reason, we donate them to charity. We work with a fixed partner, the Sarfath Foundation. The items we donate end up with people who can put them to good use, in Transylvania, Romania and in Syria.
Good, safe products.
Operating with sustainability in mind also means that we want to offer products with a long lifespan. That is why we pay a lot of attention to the quality of our products. A long-term partnership with a supplier is of great importance in order to be able to guarantee quality. Customers can rely on the quality of our products because our suppliers know our standards.
We test the quality of our products
All products meet our quality standards, and we pay close attention to maintaining those standards. Of course there are legal requirements that a product must meet. But not everything is laid down in law, so we have also set our own quality requirements. So we work according to fixed, general quality standards. In addition, we regularly test the quality of our products. We perform simple tests ourselves. If a needed test is more complicated, we go to a lab. For example, we perform wash tests, shrinkage tests, color-fastness tests and lint tests. We believe that the quality of our products should always be good. But good is usually good enough. This allows us to keep prices low.
Spot checks.
To ensure that the test products are not better than the ones that will soon be on our shelves, we also do regular spot checks with (high-risk) products taken right off the shelves of our stores. We have these tested by TÜV Rheinland. In 2019, there were 454 spot checks. 96% of the products met Zeeman's strict standards.
