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Raiffeisen Bank International | Sustainability Report 2018
Management Overview Foreword
of sustainability
Responsible
banker
Fair partner –
Human Resources
Fair partner –
Inhouse ecology
Engaged
citizen
GRI index and
Assurance report
Corporate Volunteering
The various corporate volunteering initiatives help to make the group feel part of a bigger picture, to support
Friedrich Wilhelm Raiffeisen’s idea of helping others to help themselves in this day and age, and to proactively
live up to our social responsibility together and within society.
H. Stepic CEE Charity – supported by Raiffeisen Bank International
Founded in 2006 by Dr. Herbert Stepic, former Chief Executive Officer of RBI AG, the association
sponsors and supports children, young people, and women in particular in Central and Eastern
Europe who find themselves in social and/or financial emergencies. Outside help is desperately needed,
especially in crisis regions such as eastern Ukraine, but many rural areas in South-East Europe, for example,
continue to be characterized by abject poverty. Because of its deep roots in Central and Eastern Europe and
its pragmatic approach, the H. Stepic CEE Charity positively influences the living conditions of the people it
supports, offering them new prospects.
Among other things, it provides children and
adolescents with a home in a family-like environment,
carries out education projects for street children, and
promotes the self-preservation ability of young people
through access to school and vocational training. All
charity projects are carried out in collaboration with
local or international partner organizations.
They are served by dedicated RBI employees, in
Vienna as part of the corporate volunteering program
that was launched in 2015, and at most Central and
Eastern European locations on a voluntary basis. This
reduces administrative costs to
© Caritas
a minimum, and nearly all financial contributions go directly to the projects.
In Serbia, the “Puzzling the Support” project for preschoolers and first- and second-graders whose parents are
mostly illiterate has been supported since 2016 in conjunction with the project partner, the Center for Youth
Integration. Its main aim is to integrate children into the education system at an early age to prevent them from
dropping out of school. A study by the project found that 80 percent of those supported stay in school afterwards,
putting them on the right path to obtaining their compulsory schooling. Together with the Center for Youth
Integration, the charity has been providing children and young people living on the streets in Belgrade with
psychological and medical support at a day center and facilitating their school education since 2011. The
families of the children and young people between five and 15 years old live far below the poverty line and
often rely on even the youngest family members earning money or begging on the streets. At the day center, they
can drink clean water and eat hot meals, enjoy space and time to learn, and gain social skills by playing with
other children. 92 percent of the children and young people cared for by the center now have the necessary
documents to receive government assistance, while 84 percent of them currently attend school regularly.
Since 2015, children and young people between the age of six and 14 have been cared for by the “A Chance
for Education” project at the Hercules Day Care Center run by the Hercules Association in Costes˛ ti, Romania.
In addition to social support, educational policy support, and material support, the project aims to promote
solidarity in the impoverished town and the participation of all members of the community through their
involvement in the day care center.
To take part in the Hercules project, the children must regularly attend school. This has helped to reduce the
absence rate to near zero. The school dropout rate is also zero.
The charity, which partners with Caritas, runs another project called “Ways out of the Ghetto for Girls” in Satu