10th anniversary: supporting good causes – from Austria to Georgia
Every year, employees at the Vienna Insurance Group – Austria’s largest international insurance group – can spend one working day volunteering in support of good causes. Titled Social Active Day, this unique initiative was launched in 2011 – in the middle of the economic and financial crisis – by VIG’s main shareholder, Wiener Städtische Versicherungsverein.
Employees devote their time to a range of different activities on Social Active Day. They vary according to the organisation, the location and local needs. For example, Wiener Städtische Versicherung – the largest member of the insurance group in Austria – has implemented various projects in collaboration with partners such as Caritas, Hilfswerk, the Red Cross and Volkshilfe. These include support for social supermarkets; cooking for people in need at the Gruft, a homeless facility; distributing meals from the Canisibus, a mobile soup kitchen; visits to care and retirement homes, refugee shelters and Nachbarschaftszentren community centres; as well as gardening and l itter picking. Social Active Day is also part and parcel of the corporate culture at VIG’s second-largest Austrian insurance company, Donau Versicherung. But it is not only staff in Austria who are willing to roll up their sleeves; employees from more than 20 European countries – including top management – also take part: every year, about 6,000 people from across the Group do volunteer work on Social Active Day. This year, in spite of the coronavirus pandemic, Social Active Day again saw employees devote their time to helping people who require urgent assistance and support.
