A regional corporate volunteering council established in Amur Oblast

17 may 2021

The first conference of the Amur chapter of the National Corporate Volunteering Council (NCVC), established with the participation of SIBUR and the Government of Amur Oblast, took place in Blagoveshchensk. It was designed to coordinate the efforts of companies, volunteering centers and nonprofit organizations aimed at replicating the best volunteering practices throughout the region. The conference helped identify key focus areas of the chapter’s work plan for 2021.

The conference was attended by Ekaterina Snezhko, Deputy Chief of Staff of the Regional Governor and Government, representatives of companies and volunteering centers from Blagoveshchensk, Belogorsk, Svobodny, Tsiolkovsky, and other districts of Amur Oblast. The list of participants included SIBUR, Otkrytiye Bank, Bureyskaya HPP (RusHydro), Gazprom Pererabotka Blagoveshchensk, MTS, Rostelecom, Belogorsk Locomotive Depot (Russian Railways), TsENKI (Roscosmos), as well as experts from volunteering and resource centers and charitable foundations.

We are delighted that our initiative, which was launched six years ago, is being joined by new companies, regions and participants. This is an indication that corporate volunteering is becoming a visible part of the overall volunteering movement, and that by working together we can make our lives just a little bit better! Irina Zhukova, Chairman of the National Council on Corporate Volunteering and Director of Corporate Programs and Sustainable Development at Philip Morris International Russia, said in her address to the conference’s participants.

At the conference, its participants discussed the list of priorities for the current year and agreed interaction and information exchange mechanisms. A proposal was voiced to analyze and consolidate the best volunteering practices of Amur Oblast’s companies and non-profits into a single database for further replication of the accumulated experience. The issue of volunteer training and development was also discussed. According to the participants, the range of services provided by volunteers is quite broad, whereas some of them require specific knowledge and a special approach to be successfully performed.

Gleb Fedotov, Head of the Amur chapter of NCVC and Head of government relations and socio-economic projects of Amursky GCC LLC, noted the advanced level of development of volunteering movements and public initiatives in Amur Oblast: Most of the companies and organizations that are members of the regional council already have a lot of experience in implementing volunteering projects. We would like to not only share this experience with each other, but to also join our efforts to take our projects to a new quality level, and to solve tasks that can reach a greater number of benefactors and beneficiaries.

Alexei Timchenko, Head of social programs and youth policy at the Vostochny Space Center (a branch of TsENKI) shared their experience in conducting career guidance classes for children and plans for holding a forum for working youths of Amur Oblast. Andrey Domashenkin, Head of the Mashina, a network of sports clubs, and member of the Legislative Assembly of Amur Oblast, spoke about motivation and about involving employees in volunteering activities.

Stanislav Kasparov, Director of Business Support in the Regions of SIBUR's Presence, spoke about employees’ volunteering activities and how the company supports their good and kind initiatives: For us, corporate volunteering is an important component of our Formula for Good Deeds social investment program and an element of our sustainable development strategy. Over the three years of our systematic efforts, we have achieved impressive results in expanding our volunteering network. We have over 5,000 employee volunteers at our company who have been implementing their projects with SIBUR's support and have accumulated extensive experience in implementing and scaling up their best initiatives.

Attendees of the first conference of the Amur Oblast’s regional chapter of NCVC found the meeting to be productive and a good platform for uniting like-minded people and discussing new volunteering initiatives. All organizations involved have expressed their willingness to participate in further efforts of the Council.

By the end of May, all proposals for expanding Amur Oblast’s volunteering movement will be collated into a single plan and put into action.