30 Good Deeds to ELEKS’ 30th Anniversary

The coronavirus pandemic has spread around the world, including Ukraine, quite unexpectedly. At the beginning of the quarantine, no one could even imagine what was yet to come. By all means, this problem united the Ukrainian society all at once: everyone who cared helped doctors and affected in hospitals lacking medication. Hundreds of companies, including ELEKS, granted funds to support medical institutions, purchased medicines and personal protective equipment for their employees and for all those in need. Over time, the situation normalized, hospitals managed to organize its operation, and the situation in society as a whole became more predictable. 

However, feeling a constant threat to their lives and health, struggling with financial difficulties, being constantly stressed, many people became fixated on their inner emotions and disengaged themselves from other social problems not related to the pandemic. 

On the other hand, there were hundreds of public initiatives, charitable foundations, and public organizations left with no support. Being financially dependent on the society, in a difficult time of pandemic, they are left alone with their organizational problems and the social problems they are supposed to solve. 

Seeing and feeling the apathy of one part of society and the urgent need to support another one, we decided to show by our own example that through partnership and support for each other we can drive the society and promote sustainable development even in challenging circumstances. Therefore, we decided to dedicate our efforts to active engagement of our experts in good deeds project in partnership with other organizations throughout the year of 2021. 

 In addition, our goal was to teach each and every member of our ELEKS team to see opportunities for good deeds not only within our initiative, but everywhere and at all times. That is why we wanted our colleagues to suggest good deeds and also involved the organizations in partnership with which we could implement their ideas or which were already addressing an important problem in society and needed some external support. 

We decided that the successful implementation of this partnership initiative would be a great present for the society and communities on the occasion of the 30th anniversary of ELEKS.

First, on April 23, 2021, we announced this initiative within the company by sending everyone a personal letter with an offer to join and think of an idea of a good deed or volunteer to implement someone’s idea. We have designed a dedicated platform for collecting ideas. In total, we’ve received 40 ideas from four of our Ukrainian offices (Lviv, Kyiv, Ternopil, Ivano-Frankivsk). Having received the result, Andrii Krupa, the company’s CEO, said: “Knowing that the people I work with are not indifferent to social problems gives me faith that Ukraine will be fine.” 

Preliminary selection of ideas was made by the CSR committee, which anyone could join. As a result, the created committee included HR, Employee Relations, Sales and Development representatives – a total of 7 people, and the responsibility for the final decisions regarding which ideas to implement was assigned to the Employee Relations department. We wrote the letters with explanations and suggestions to all those whose ideas had not been accepted. 

After that, we carried out detailed planning: the initiators became responsible for the implementation of their ideas, established the time frame, determined the required materials / amounts of funds to be allocated. As we do not have a dedicated CSR specialist, Employee Relations department actively assisted in communication with external partners, looked for additional organizations concerned, which would also join our activities. In fact, none of the organizations we addressed refused us. 

Kateryna Andrushchenko, the Head of Employee Relations, believes: “Such a willingness to support the ideas of colleagues is another priceless manifestation of partnership.” 

In general, as of November 23, 2021, within the framework of the partnership initiative, ELEKS has allocated over UAH 1,650,000 for the good deeds. More than 700 ELEKS professionals were involved in the implementation of the initiative (as of November 23, 2021, more than 2,000 people are employed in the company’s offices in Ukraine). 

We managed to implement 30 good deeds, in which more than 60 companies, public organizations, charitable foundations, educational and medical institutions became partners. We are proud of all our new and old partners, with whom we can influence the solution of social problems and do good deeds together. 

For example, ELEKS provided financial support to Tarilka NGO, the first food bank in Lviv, in purchasing a car refrigerator, 4 bactericidal lamps, scales, a contactless thermometer, and a laptop. We also took part in the joint voluntary work in the main room of the food bank of Tarilka NGO – the sorting line, where the repairs were completed. The author of the good deed idea is our HR Manager Marta Hrybalska, who has been supporting Tarilka NGO since its incorporation (October 2019). Together with various partners, through the support of Tarilka NGO, we joined in addressing the problem of hunger and poverty of about 2 thousand residents of Lviv, including mostly retirees and people with disabilities, who now have the opportunity to receive food aid. 

This year, in August, ELEKS and the Building Ukraine Together All-Ukrainian Platform took part in the restoration of the property at the unique estate of Lenkevych-Valevskyis, which had been built in the late 18th – early 19th centuries in the village of Goshcha in Rivne region. The initiator of this good deed was Olena Kliushnyk, Senior Test Engineer at ELEKS. Through our joint efforts we managed to arrange a public space for the Goshcha community, which includes more than 5 thousand people.

Together with volunteers from Paint Their Life, the ELEKS project participants decorated the walls of “Berizka” Kyiv City Orphanage, which houses 150 children aged 0 to 4 years, and Darnytskyi orphanage in Kyiv, where 147 children aged 4 to 35 years live. This initiative was suggested by our Tamila Volochii, the Project Coordinator, and together with Paint Their Life we could make the lives of these children a little brighter and more enjoyable.

The complete list of good deeds done within the 30 Good Deeds to Celebrate ELEKS’ 30th Anniversary is available here. 

Another important accomplishment within the framework of this initiative for us is the extent to which the understanding of corporate social responsibility concept has expanded within our team. At the beginning of the partnership initiative implementation, we received only 40 applications and this number of ideas is due to the fact that at an early stage, our company had a limited understanding of CSR, reduced to optional lessons for students interested in computer science, and often perceived as charity. But in the process of carrying out all 30 Good Deeds, we noticed the interest and desire of many colleagues to participate in such projects and realized how many opportunities there are for CSR activities. It was also important to realize that partnership and mutual assistance can ensure addressing social problems in a much more efficient way in pursuing sustainable development. 

It should be added that we have partnered with Ukrainian social enterprises to create New Year’s gift sets for ELEKS’ project participants, thus expressing our support to them. So, the New Year’s package will include: a Christmas cake by Good Bread, white cookies from the Walnut House, cookies made by Veterano Brownie, turpentine tea from Maisternia Mrii, rose jam from the Inklusyvna Kukhnia, frips made of dried fruits and a mix of nuts from FrontMed, honey by BeeThe and wax toys from Candles Manufactory.

Our good deeds resonate with the people and they see us as those who can unite organizations and help in a time of need. This is evidenced by dozens of emails sent to the company with requests for assistance. None of them is left unattended, we answer to each of them. Thus, we have already gathered ideas for the next 31 Good Deed in 2022. 

We believe that doing more good deeds will perfectly reflect the growth of our company in general and the CSR focus in particular. And it will also be a powerful boost to the joint activities that lead us towards sustainable development. We believe that we will be able to achieve the goals only if we work together and complement each other’s efforts along the way, and not just quietly make our individual contributions.