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UniCredit Bank employees in the Czech Republic and Slovakia voted within the “Your Choice, your Project”

At the turn of May and June 2014, UniCredit Bank employees in the Czech Republic and Slovakia voted within the “Your Choice, your Project” initiative for the support of one of socially beneficial business plans. Employees thus selected projects that won the Sympathy Award and a sponsorship of EUR 5,000.00/CZK 125,000.00 from the UniCredit Foundation.

Four projects from Slovakia and eight projects from the Czech Republic were competing to win the Sympathy Award. In both cases they are the winning projects of the investment program implemented in Slovakia by the Provida Foundation under the title “Can Fish Fly?” In the Czech Republic, it was the Via Foundation that took care of the “Better Business” program implementation. In both countries, the program was sponsored by the UniCredit Foundation. The Foundation supported four winning projects in Slovakia granting EUR 48,000.00 in total and eight projects in the Czech Republic granting CZK 1,600,000.00 in total.

The main mission of socially beneficial and social businessmen is to preferentially solve the actual social issues to generation of their own profit. Topics of the competing projects varied from help to disabled children and people through solution of environmental issues, job creation for socially disadvantaged and disabled groups of population.

Winner of the internal voting in Slovakia is the Centrum Svetielko project of the civic association Viera – láska – nádej (eng. Faith – Love – Hope) that provides complex health and social care to children with multiple disabilities. The project is implemented in Prešov and, thanks to the grant of EUR 12,000.00 from the UniCredit Foundation, will also expand to Trenčín. “The Sympathy Award of UniCredit Bank employees with financial support of EUR 5,000.00 will help train therapists in the rehabilitation method TheraSuit and will thus allow us to help more disabled children in the Eastern, and now also in the Western, Slovakia,” said the centre founder – Mária Šárossyová.

In the Czech Republic, employees could choose from among eight projects and decided for the project of the Civic Association Náruč. Náruč provides social services and creates job opportunities for mentally disabled people in the social firm Náruč that makes fresh gluten-free pasta “Pasta Fidli”.“The Sympathy Award of UniCredit Bank employees with financial support of CZK 125,000.00 will be used to develop and launch production of tasty gluten-free pasta “Pasta Fidli” that our consumers like so much,” Helena Cymerová from the social firm Náruč said and added that she would be able to employ twice as many disadvantaged employees thanks to this subsidy.

The “Your Choice, Your Project” program delegates responsibility of UniCredit to the bank employees themselves and is unique because of the innovative approach that is based on the mechanism of internal voting and active participation of employees in the selection of non-profit organisation projects. As the Chairman of the UniCredit Foundation, Maurizio Carrara, said, “In this difficult period, social entrepreneurship represents an efficient solution through which we can intervene in those areas that need support, directly implicating the targeted beneficiaries. This is an example of an excellent use of business instruments with the purpose of producing social effects and contributing to the development of the community in which we live. Through Your Choice, Your Project we also had the possibility to involve UniCredit employees in the choice of their favourite projects”.

The following projects competed for the UniCredit Bank's Sympathy Award

Czech Republic

• social firm Náruč that creates job opportunities for mentally disabled people in the area of pasta production;
• Textile atelier Strojovna that employs retired individuals and contributes thus to their social inclusion;
• AUTONAPUL that offers carsharing;
• pasparty publishing house engaging in care for autistic people and in publication of books focused on autism;
• civic association JAKO DOMA that helps women without home integrate into society through public presentation of their cooking skills;
• travel agency BEZBATOUR dealing in the offer of barrier-free travelling;
• FRANK BOLD association that engages in provision of services contributing to positive social changes – for example they operate advisory services concerning the rights of citizens in contact with authorities; 
• SPOLEČNOST "E" supporting people with epilepsy creating specific job opportunities and integrating them into society.

Slovakia

• Centrum Svetielko – o.z. Viera – láska - nádej – centre providing complex health and social care to children with multiple disabilities and their families;  
• BEEZnis, project of o.z. kRaj that engages in apiculture development in Slovakia;
• Project of o.z. Z dobrých rúk that seeks to market products of as many as 14 protected workshops and can thus give work to more than 60 mentally and physically disabled people;  
• Project of o.z. Kvas - Zdravá kuchyňa that promotes healthy cooking and cooking classes for people with special dietary needs.