UPM Pulp Matters 1/2023

THE PERSONAL TOUCH

The Sarandí del Yí nursery has various positive socio economic impacts on the community.

“I VALUE THE FACT THAT UPM UNDERSTANDS THE IMPORTANCE OF EMPLOYING LOCAL WOMEN.”

ministry. For four years she travelled around 100 kilometres each day to the Capital of Durazno to work. Then the news broke that UPM was going to establish a new tree nursery. “I was tired of travelling every day to Durazno, so UPM’s announcement that it was recruiting agronomists in Sarandí del Yí was a signal that I should apply and an opportunity to work in my hometown,” Cardozo says. In 2020, during the Covid pandemic, she applied for a supervisory position in the nursery. Cardozo had no experience with trees, afforestation and nurseries, but was eager to challenge herself and learn more. After a couple of interviews, she was offered the position of head of the new nursery. “I’m proud that UPM trusted me to fulfil this position, but at the same time being responsible for a nursery of 120 employees surely felt like a challenge. It was great, but at the same time terrifying,” she says. B efore starting work at UPM in 2021, Cardozo joined a 10-month induction programme – together with two supervisors for the new nursery – in Paysandú, a city 300 kilometres from Sarandí del Yí, where UPM has its other two nurseries. “The induction programme was comprehensive: each day we accompanied the people who work in both nurseries in their daily work where they taught us the practical part of working in a nursery. Not only did we learn the operation of

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PUL P MAT TERS 01/2023