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Mare and Baia Mare in Romania. Over half of socially
disadvantaged children and young people in Satu Mare and
Baia Mare – many of them members of minority communities –
fail to complete elementary school. Girls in particular are liable to
drop out of school early. Since 2017, education professionals
have been helping these children, young people, and adults
between the age of seven and 20 to learn at four after-school
clubs. Within three years, the project has considerably reduced
the school dropout rate and opened the door to an independent
future for many children.
In Bulgaria one-fifth of children, young people, and young adults
between the ages of three and 19 live below the poverty line of
150 euros a month. Many young people are unemployed and up
to 4,000 children live on the streets. In many cases, social hardship
drives parents to leave their children to be cared for by grandparents
or neighbors while they search for work abroad – one in every four
children grows up without at least one parent.
Roma children are particularly hard hit by poverty: Language
barriers and social exclusion mean they have few opportunities
to complete their schooling with a positive outcome. With the
charity’s support, around 200 children and young people were
cared for at one of the three Caritas day centers in Kuklen,
Malko Tarnovo, and Sofia in 2018. A Caritas social worker and
volunteers also work with particularly disadvantaged children at
the elementary school in Banya. As well as improving the health
and hygiene of the children and their parents, the project helped
to integrate the younger children into the education system, while
the older ones improved their grades at school.
In Austria, “Haus Roshan”, a container
hostel for 48 refugees including 36
unaccompanied minors and six pairs
of brothers, was constructed in
November 2015 in conjunction
with Caritas (see the RZB Group
Sustainability Report 2015, pages
144 and 145). After constructing the
furniture, around 250 RBI employees
got involved in various activities –
including cooking together, playing
football and volleyball, and running.
Regular assistance in learning
German proved to be particularly
© K.Thym
popular. Some of the mentoring relationships that began in September
2016, which were intended to last two months, have become real
friendships as close as family in some cases.
Raiffeisen Bank International | Sustainability Report 2018
© IBM
Isabella Gassama-Luschin,
Corporate Citizenship, IBM
Österreich Internationale Büromaschinen
Gesellschaft m.b.H.
Petra Rösler, coordinator covo.at
“Corporate volunteering in Austria is still in
its relative infancy according to a qualitative
study by the covo.at networking platform
on the development potential of corporate
commitment. Large companies in particular
already have experience in corporate
volunteering. They release their employees
to perform manual volunteer work or to
assist on outings, typically as part of ‘social
days’. However, associations and non-profit
organizations see this trend as a donation
of time that, in turn, requires time and effort
on their part when it comes to initiation and
implementation. The resulting cost/benefit
discussion could be resolved with specific
target agreements and impact assessments.
In any case, the value of corporate
volunteering for society as a whole is
undisputed, as it enables face-to-face
encounters and helps to work against
divisions in society. This is also important for
digital pioneers like IBM Österreich, as
digitization will benefit society only if we
succeed in making it inclusive and ensure
that everyone is on board as we develop
into a digital society. This has also given rise
to an important new area of action for
corporate volunteering: preparing the
population for the digital professions of the
future.”
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