5,160 volunteers from 9 companies joined the All-Ukrainian "Relay of Goodness".
In 2017, 1+1 media started a social challenge - "Relay of Good". Soon the relay began to walk across Ukraine. During 2018, it was joined by corporate volunteers from the following companies: Syngenta in Ukraine, SE "NAEK Energoatom", OKKO, EY in Ukraine, Astarta-Kyiv, SoftServe, PJSC "Farmak" and Auchan
In 2017, the 1+1 media company started the "Relay of Good" social challenge. During the year, for 246 hours of corporate volunteering, 18 events were implemented for those who needed help. Top managers were the first to participate in the project and handed it over to one of the departments. Each division chose a certain good deed, implemented it within two weeks, and passed the baton to another team of colleagues. This caused a certain excitement, because no one knew who would be next in this chain. During the year, "Estafeta Dobra" visited the Kyiv Children's Infectious Disease Hospital, the Kyiv Labor Veterans' Boarding House, the Main Military Clinical Hospital of Kyiv, a specialized children's home of the Kyiv Region, a shelter for homeless animals of the "Sirius" Charitable Foundation, the "Father's House" social care center, Kyiv Regional Social "Mother and Child Together" Center, Kyiv Military Lyceum named after I. Bohuna, the City Blood Center in Kyiv and the White Rock bear rehabilitation shelter. Volunteers also held educational and cultural events for young people with disabilities.
"It was a kind of "social team building" of each unit. Employees interacted with each other in unusual roles and together shared the joy of a good deed. This further unites the team and leaves pleasant emotions and memories. In this way, the project had a positive impact not only on the community, but also on the company's volunteers," says HR director of 1+1 media Larisa Bruver .
In 2018, socially responsible companies joined the Relay for Good. The international company Syngenta in Ukraine was the first to continue the chain of kindness. 92 employees took part in 9 different initiatives. The first to join were the top managers who, together with their partner, the Garna Gallery art gallery, painted the walls of the dining room of the toxicology department of the National Children's Hospital "OKHMATDYT". Then the employees visited the residents of the Peremoh home for the elderly, on whose territory trees and flowers were planted, and new benches were installed. A group of volunteer colleagues from another department spent the day at the shelter for homeless animals of the "Sirius" charitable foundation, helping to care for the animals. Those who care about the environment went to the arboretum "Dykanka", where more than 50 different trees were planted. Employees from Bila Tserkva, Korsun-Shevchenkivskyi, Poltava and Dnipro organized a series of events for children from orphanages and social centers and helped them repair buildings and restore order on the territory.
Then the baton passed to the state enterprise "NAEK "Energoatom" . Corporate volunteers, together with parents and staff of the Early Development Center for children with Down syndrome, conducted a general cleaning of the premises and the surrounding area of the Center. "Sunny" children were also involved in such joint occupational therapy, who enthusiastically helped adults wash balls from the "dry" pool where they constantly play. In addition, the company's employees presented creative kits to the children, and a vacuum cleaner to the Center.
The OKKO gas station network took over the baton. Employees devoted 248 volunteer hours to social initiatives. They cleaned the territory of a home for the elderly in the Kyiv region, which was after renovation, and bought the necessary goods for their use. Repair work was also carried out at the "Good at Home" social support center in the city of Dnipro and the necessary items were brought to prepare the Center's children for September 1. The third good deed was a visit to an orphanage in the city of Tulchyn, where volunteers bought and installed a children's swing. In Kharkiv, volunteers purchased and installed 18 cots for the regional children's home No. 3.
Continuing the corporate chain of kindness, 67 employees of the international auditing and consulting company EY in Ukraine took part in five social initiatives. Employees of various departments proposed recipients of aid and acted as leaders of initiatives responsible for implementation and involvement of volunteers. They visited an orphanage in the town of Vorzel, where children with disabilities live, installed a trampoline and presented the institution with developmental games. The next event was a visit to lonely elderly people in the village of Kozhanka, to whom the company's volunteers brought tonometers, taught them how to use them, and helped them with household chores. Soon they visited the "Artemon" animal shelter, where they cleaned and repaired the enclosures, as well as fed and trimmed the dogs. Before the trip, volunteers organized a lottery in the office and collected 5,350 hryvnias for animal feed. A charity auction in the EY office of 30 employee lots continued the relay. The collected 26,380 hryvnias were donated to the "Mama SOS" fund, which takes care of mothers and families in difficult situations. At the end, the volunteers held sports relays and bought sports equipment for the pupils of the Ushomi boarding school.
In turn, Astarta-Kyiv agricultural holding received a challenge from the EY company. 2,000 volunteers from 9 regions of Ukraine joined the "Relay of Goodness": Poltava, Kharkiv, Vinnytsia, Khmelnytskyi, Zhytomyr, Ternopil, Cherkasy, Chernihiv regions and the city of Kyiv. Representatives of the company and the community organized measures to improve public spaces, carried out repair work, helped educational institutions, became blood donors, planted trees and initiated other activities. As part of 27 volunteer projects, 1,479 children, 863 elderly people, as well as 7 families of ATO participants received help.
Another company that joined the All-Ukrainian "Relay of Good" was SoftServe . Employees in Lviv, Kyiv, Dnipro, Kharkiv, Ivano-Frankivsk, Rivne, Chernivtsi and Sofia (Bulgaria) organized a number of charity events and fundraising campaigns to support the projects of the corporate Charity Fund "Open Eyes", namely: opening a space for the development of children with autism in the city of Ivano-Frankivsk and the opening of Positive Rooms in children's hospitals in the cities of Ivano-Frankivsk, Kharkiv, Dnipro and Rivne. As part of the social project "Home care" of the charitable organization "Caritas Ukraine", volunteers in Lviv visited 50 lonely pensioners and people with disabilities and another 150 low-income elderly people at the monastery, providing them with food kits, hygiene products and basic necessities. The good deeds of the SoftServe team did not end there. 33 employees visited the "Domazhyr" bear shelter in Lviv, helping with the arrangement of the territory for 11 bears. Continuing the measures to help animals, the company's employees organized charitable book fairs and the sale of thematic stickers and transferred the collected funds to the shelters "Virnist" (Dnipro), "Kotomaty" (Kyiv) and "Center for the treatment of animals" (Kharkiv).
The next baton was received by the pharmaceutical company Farmak . A group of activists visited the shelter for homeless animals of the "Sirius" charitable foundation, helped in cleaning the territory, freed the area for the construction of new enclosures, insulated places for dogs to spend the night with hay before winter frosts, provided all furry residents with water, and also collected 200 kg of humanitarian aid: medical tools, insulation materials, fodder and household products.
Auchan International Company joined the social relay with volunteers from 9 cities of Ukraine: Kyiv, Kryvyi Rih, Dnipro, Zaporizhzhia, Kharkiv, Chernivtsi, Lviv, Odesa, Zhytomyr. At the end of November, employees collected the wishes of children from orphanages under their leadership and partner charitable organizations, and from December 1, each of Auchan's 26 stores had a Christmas tree decorated with dream toys. During the month, each client could join the action by buying a gift for a child, indicated on the toy, and leave it to the employees, or hand it over personally during a joint visit with a team of volunteers. It was possible to fulfill the wishes of 747 children from 15 orphanages and 6 charitable organizations.
"We are inspired by the fact that the 1+1 media initiative has already been supported by 8 socially responsible companies and the number of good deeds in Ukraine has increased even more. The corporate volunteering project united 5,160 employees, spread across 13 regions of Ukraine, to help those who needed it most. This is a vivid example of how good deeds are able to unite Ukrainian and international, state and private companies from different fields of activity," says Maryna Hrytsenko , head of the corporate social responsibility group at 1+1 media .
Today, the "Relay of Good" stopped at the chain of construction supermarkets Leroy Marlen Ukraine. They are the ones who start 2019 with good deeds. Who will be the next in the chain of kindness - we will find out very soon.
