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Each year, the bank recognizes the academy’s best students with monetary awards of around € 500 per student.
In the year 2017, seven students had the opportunity to exhibit their work in the gallery.
Raiffeisen Bank International | Sustainability Report 2017
GRI content index / Assurance statement Engaged citizen Fair partner Responsible banker Sustainability management Overview Foreword
© Arben Llapashtica
Culture as key – this is of particular importance for Raiffeisen Bank Kosovo J.S.C.
In 2017, in all its cultural activities, it particularly addressed the need for youth
education, including for example masterclasses during the Chopin Festival, and
workshops and masterclasses during the “PriFest” Film Festival.
Since the inception of the Chopin piano festival “Prishtina”, Raiffeisen Bank Kosovo
J.S.C. has been a festival sponsor. It offers concerts, master classes for students,
and a symposium dedicated to the life and work of the composers or pianists
being commemorated in the current year around the world. In April 2017, Raiffeisen
Bank Kosovo J.S.C. once again supported education through talks, workshops,
master classes and a special “PianoEdu” week, in which around 100 music
students participated.
The Prishtina International Film Festival, “PriFest” for short, was held for the ninth
time in Pristina, the capital of Kosovo. Raiffeisen Bank Kosovo J.S.C. has been a sponsor since the festival began
in 2008 and has been the main sponsor since 2017. One of the most important events of the festival is the event
series “PriFORUM Regional Coproduction”, which brings filmmakers from throughout Europe together in the heart
of Kosovo. A series of workshops, master classes and speeches were held for the public and students in particular.
The European Summer Music Academy (SMA) was designed for young artists from Kosovo. In 2017, an orchestra
academy was founded within the framework of the European Summer Academy for Music. The new symphony
orchestra consists of young musicians from various countries in Southeastern Europe.
Corporate volunteering
The various corporate volunteering initiatives help to make the group feel part of a bigger picture, to support the
Friedrich Wilhelm Raiffeisen’s idea of helping others to help themselves today, and to proactively live up to our
social responsibility together and within society.
The “Deloitte/RBI Finance & Accounting School”
initiative is a financial education project for recognized
refugees at RBI AG. The goal is to use a standardized
educational concept to make it easier for refugees to
find entry into the workforce in the Austrian labor market.
In cooperation with the business management consulting
firm Deloitte, not only were suitable candidates with
relevant training in accounting or business sought and
selected in the fall of 2016, but a goal-oriented training
program was fine-tuned as well. By way of support,
each participant was assigned their own “buddy”.
Fourteen refugees from Syria and Iraq were able to
acquire extensive knowledge in 95 sessions – a total
© RBI AG
of 475 teaching hours. First, they brought their knowledge of German up to the graduation secondary school
leaving exam level (Matura) at the WIFI-Vienna Economic Development Institute, before familiarizing themselves
with German as a business language and with basic principles of business administration. The two modules on
accounting practice included specialist presentations by RBI colleagues, which informed participants about
intercultural competences and provided them with tips and tricks for applications and job interviews. For the final
exam, they studied intensively with their buddies. Thus, ten participants were able to complete the written accounting
practice exam at the WIFI in November 2017, and eight of them also took the oral (board) exam. Through internships
at Deloitte and job training at RBI AG, participants can now apply the knowledge acquired.