How We Helped over 7,000 turtles find their way to the ocean

Today is World Ocean Day and what better way to celebrate than talking about a fantastic sea turtle project the team at Wooga had been working on earlier this year. We sat down with Steffi Bloch, the master brain behind the project:

Hi Steffi, let’s start off by introducing yourself. Who are you and what is your role at Wooga?
My name is Steffi Bloch and I am part of the facilities team at Wooga. Our team is responsible for everything around the office but also organising company events and supporting our expat colleagues navigating through German bureaucracy.

Please give a brief overview of the project?
The idea of the project was to give all Woogas an Easter present which is sustainable and meaningful. To keep the connection to Easter, we decided on presenting each Wooga with a certain amount of turtle eggs. For this we partnered with AGA who committed themselves to protecting turtle eggs in Kenya. We were able to adopt 9,180 turtle eggs which would then be specially protected by AGA to ensure that as many hatched turtles as possible make it to the sea.

How did you come up with the idea?
We thought about chocolate bunnies as previous years, but all Woogas were still working from home. Sending chocolate bunnies in a parcel seemed ridiculous to us, not just because of the effort but also because of its negative climate impact. Therefore we thought about something new, something that would make our colleagues happy and is sustainable too, while at the same time being related to Easter. This is how we came up with virtual turtle eggs.

Why is Wooga doing such projects?
As a facilities team, our aim is to support our colleagues, cheer them up and make them happy wherever we can. You can buy chocolate in every supermarket but when do you get the chance to become a turtle parent? Considering that Wooga has made the support of climate action a focus last year, this idea simply stuck with us. It allowed us to bring joy to our colleagues’ daily lives and at the same time change the world a bit for the better by supporting biodiversity.

Why did you choose AGA Artenschutz as a partner?
AGA was the only charity where nearly 100 % of the amount goes directly to the project in Kenya. We shockingly also found charities who use 50% of the donations to cover for administration costs. After some calls we knew they are very open, friendly, flexible and helpful, and take this project seriously.

What were the challenges if there were any?
We had to check many organisations in order to find a reliable partner like AGA. A lot of them try to hide how much of the donation actually gets used to protect nature, so we can only recommend making a thorough check before making the call. It’s worth the effort.

What was the feedback you received from employees?
Our employees were very enthusiastic to get to be turtle parents — they even gave their turtles names. Everyone was more than happy to trade their chocolate for this awesome project.

Can you share some results?
We are super excited that from our 9,180 turtle eggs 7,712 turtles made it to the sea. Which is great! Did you know that from 100 eggs per turtle only very few make it to the sea? That’s just one of the facts I learned about turtles and their environmental impact during this project. So seeing nearly 85% of “our” turtles made it, makes me super happy. 7,712 Wooga turtles are somewhere in the seas now and when I see a turtle next time, I will always think of our littles family members.

‍