During the annual Volunteer Days, ORLEN Unipetrol Group employees offered their help to ten organisations. Instead of their standard job description, the volunteers helped paint the fences around the animal runs at a rescue station, painted rooms and did gardening work, among other things. A total of 175 volunteers participated in the event and spent 1,312 hours doing various volunteering activities. The initiative’s objective was to contribute to the improvement and development of local communities actively. This year, the employees could choose from ten organisations in locations where the Group is active. The highest number of volunteers helped in the areas of Horní Jiřetín and Litvínov-Janov: 47 volunteers collected rubbish, cleared illegal waste dumps and planted beech seedlings.
“We have been organising the Volunteer Days, during which ORLEN Unipetrol employees can lend a hand and help several charities, for many years. Our employees’ interest in volunteering has continuously been on the rise, and this year’s Volunteer Days involved 175 employees, almost 30 more than last year. I want to thank all the participating volunteers for their efforts and help,” said Lucie Pražáková, director of the ORLEN Unipetrol Foundation. She added: “We are glad that we added two new organisations where our employees could help. For the first time, volunteers went to a rescue station near Kladno, where they helped the Czech Union for Nature Conservation, with which we started a partnership this year. The second newly offered location is Alzheimer Home Zlín, where employees from our Otrokovice-based company Remaq can help.”
Volunteer Days is an initiative during which employees, within their working hours, can help organisations the ORLEN Unipetrol Group has been working with over the long term. They have gradually become an opportunity for employees to be involved in volunteering activities, but they are also a means for strengthening cohesion and cooperation between the employees and local communities.
Employees helped the following organisations this year:
- Early Intervention Centre in Pardubice: moving toys and aids, painting new premises, washing windows
- Rescue Station near Kladno, Czech Union for Nature Conservation: painting the fences of animal runs
- Rybka (Little Fish) Neratovice: gardening work
- Ecological Centre Most and Forests of the Czech Republic: rubbish collection, clearing waste dumps, planting trees in Horní Jiřetín and Litvínov
- Kociánka Brno: gardening work, help with on-site cleaning
- Sulická Home for the Elderly and the Handicapped, Prague-Krč: painting garden furniture, helping nursing home staff
- Veltrusy Chateau Park: park maintenance
- Naděje (Hope) Nursing Home Litvínov: gardening work, gazebo painting, building a garden shed, interior adaptations
- Alzheimer Home Zlín: gardening work, painting
- Children’s Home Kralupy nad Vltavou: interior painting, helping with clearing things out
The ORLEN Unipetrol Group also supports employee volunteering and activities with other initiatives. Throughout the year, employees can register their volunteering projects using the internal employee platform komUNIta, through which they can apply for a financial contribution and search for additional volunteers among employees to fulfil their wish to improve the quality of life and support charity organisations in the communities where the Group is active. Employees can also contribute to a good cause through their sports activities by entering their achievements at the end of each month; according to set rules, the Group subsequently turns these achievements into money donated to non-profit organisations.
Video from the volunteer day in Horní Jiřetín / Litvínov (cleaning illegal dumps and planting new trees):
About the ORLEN Unipetrol Foundation
The ORLEN Unipetrol Foundation launched its activities in 2017. Its main mission is to support education and popularise science, primarily natural and technical sciences. It also focuses on corporate social responsibility with an emphasis on supporting local communities and the environment. The Foundation has been supporting schools, educators, and students with grant programmes. The ‘Plastík a jeho kouzelný kufřík’ project provides schoolchildren from the first to the fifth grade with an excursion into the world of chemistry through entertaining experiments. The Foundation’s educational support and activities resulted in many educational videos and tutorials available to the general public on
www.nouonline.cz. Since 2024, the Foundation has been engaged in corporate social responsibility related to environmental protection, support of local communities, and volunteering. These activities include charity collections, stocking rivers with fish, supporting the nesting of endangered peregrine falcons, and beekeeping. The Foundation has long cooperated with many non-profit organisations. Also, it often reacts to current events in society and emergencies. Additional information about the ORLEN Unipetrol Foundation’s mission and other activities is available at
www.nadaceorlenunipetrol.cz.
Contact details:
Lucie Pražáková, director of the ORLEN Unipetrol Foundation
Telephone: +420 736 506 939