Charity and Volunteering

For the first time in the Company’s history, Rostelecom, together with the Life Line charity foundation, launched the nationwide Run and Help sports charity project. The project matches RUB 10 for every kilometre run by Rostelecom employees, covering the total 100 thousand kilometres run and resulting in RUB 1 million, which was then donated to the Life Line foundation for treating children with severe and rare diseases. The project began in April, bringing together more than 1,500 runners among employees and 500 volunteers from across the country within five months.

The Run and Help project was also designed to help get Rostelecom employees involved in a healthy lifestyle. The project helped running fans meet up and independently organise group training. This had a positive effect on employee communication within the Company and helped them solve their tasks more effectively. The Company’s management highly appreciated the involvement of employees and supported the idea to prolong this important social project.

The goal of the project was achieved. In October 2018, Rostelecom transferred RUB 1 million to the Life Line charity foundation for an endoprosthesis for Maxim Bashkirev, who had previously been diagnosed with bone cancer.

Rostelecom is launching the second stage of Run and Help in 2019. Employees will be able to engage not only in jogging and walking, but also swimming and cross-country skiing. To bring participants closer to a new common goal, all kilometres will be tracked on the online platform. The money raised will be used by the Life Line charity foundation to fund endoprosthetic surgeries.

Exciting Readings is a joint project of Rostelecom’s Krasnoyarsk Branch and Komsomolskaya Pravda Publishing House. Its first stage took place in April 2018. To date, the project has covered five children’s medical institutions in Krasnoyarsk and five in the Republic of Khakassia. About 200 children and teenagers came to listen to the open readings, and received books and CDs with cartoons as a gift.

Exciting Readings in Krasnoyarsk

The Company’s volunteers held the first meeting in March for patients of the Department of Oral and Maxillofacial Surgery of the Krasnoyarsk Interdistrict Children’s Clinical Hospital No. 5. Rostelecom’s volunteers read aloud short stories and poems from the book I Love to Walk on the Clouds by the famous children’s writer Anastasia Orlova. All the stories in the book are told from the point of view of a six-year-old boy. The goal of the Exciting Readings project is to revive the tradition of reading out loud collectively, impersonating characters, and exchanging opinions and ideas.

In addition to reading aloud, the project organisers hold creative master classes in hospitals. They teach the basics of puppet drama, make cut-outs or drawings from fairy tales with children, construct flying rockets, and organise other interesting activities.

For five days, the Rostelecom’s team visited hospitals No. 1, No. 4, and No. 5, as well as Krasnoyarsk Interdistrict Clinical Hospital No. 20 named after I.S. Berzon and Krasnoyarsk Regional Clinical Center for Maternity and Childhood Protection. Volunteers visited children from the trauma unit, the cardiology ward, the oral and maxillofacial surgery wards, and the burns unit.

Exciting Readings at children’s hospitals in Khakassia

The initiative received such a warm reception that the organisers decided to bring it to large settlements in Khakassia. The second stage of Rostelecom’s Exciting Readings charity project covered five children’s medical institutions in Abakan, Bely Yar, Sayanogorsk and Chernogorsk, as well as the children’s department at a tuberculosis dispensary in the capital of Khakassia.

The idea of Exciting Readings was also supported by Krasnoyarsk libraries. Librarians and Rostelecom employees continue to spend time with children in hospitals.

Exciting Readings will not be limited to the Krasnoyarsk Territory and the Republic of Khakassia. Rostelecom employees from other regions are planning to follow this successful example to involve as many branch employees in the volunteer movement as possible.

Rostelecom is actively engaged in the Want to Be! charity programme organised by the AIF. Dobroye Serdtse (AIF. Kind Heart) charity. It is focused on providing targeted assistance to children suffering from chronic renal failure, who have recently undergone or are preparing for a kidney transplant. The programme also aims to foster the children’s interest in various professions, helping them to further understand their creative and intellectual potential and decide what they want to do when they grow up.

After their successful kidney transplant surgeries at the RSCS named after Petrovsky, children took part in a photo shoot. Children from the Republic of Bashkortostan, Chelyabinsk, Sverdlovsk, Kaluga, Nizhny Novgorod Regions, Krasnodar Territory, Moscow, and Saint Petersburg gathered in Moscow to participate in an interesting and fascinating transformation into a forester, tamer, violinist, physical education teacher, woodworker, welder, banker, postman, beekeeper, judge, or carpenter.

Illustrated Books for Little Blind Children Regional Charity Foundation was established in 1994. The foundation’s project, publishing vibrantly illustrated books complete with relief drawings for visually-impaired children, is included in the programme of the World Decade for Cultural Development of the United Nations and UNESCO. For a quarter of a century, the foundation has been publishing and distributing polysensory books free of charge for children of preschool and primary school age with special educational needs. Every year, Rostelecom contributes to the publication of these books and runs the Books as a Gift programme.

In 2018, the foundation delivered and distributed books for visually impaired children to 380 specialised institutions and 185 libraries, as well as to 120 children at home in 160 cities and settlements across Russia.

House of Veronica is a home in Penza offering accommodation to disabled young people. It was opened in June 2017. Here, people with severe disabilities can work and lead an active, self-sufficient life. They are helped by specially selected staff with no experience of working in institutions for people with special needs, as the boarding house staff should only support the residents rather than assist them with everything.

In 2018, Rostelecom installed high-speed internet in a workshop at the House of Veronica. At the new workshop, the tenants learn crafting and earn money, while the provided service helps them accept and process orders for creating souvenirs and printed goods. In the future, Rostelecom will help the House of Veronika acquire computers and specialised equipment for its small-scale printing shop. The Company employees regularly hold lessons on computer skills for young people at the centre.

The task of the KnowTeach socio-educational project is to help children who undergo lengthy inpatient treatment in oncohematological departments at hospitals receive a comprehensive school education without lagging behind their peers after returning to school. It also unites teachers working in hospitals. At the project sites, PJSC Rostelecom runs its Steps to Success! socio-educational programme. Children undergoing treatment participate together with their parents. Through training in media technology, personal development, and art theory, the programme provides children with a distraction from their illness to acquire useful self-presentation skills and confidence necessary for passing state exams and participating in scholarly competitions.

The KnowTeach project has time and again won the annual awards of patient organisations and organisations established by the parents of children undergoing cancer treatment.

Schools in the KnowTeach project provide not only an education based on the state school curriculum (and tailored to the particular conditions of a sick child), but also additional educational programmes, exciting events with interesting people, creative and scientific research sessions inspiring the children to recover, as well as support for family members.

Beginning in Krasnodar in April 2017 and running for one full year, the Believe in Yourself social project, jointly run by Rostelecom and Autonomous Non-Commercial Organisation Sinyaya Ptitsa (Blue Bird), provides career guidance for high school students and children with special needs.

The project included excursions to enterprises and organisations in the Krasnodar Territory, seminars on labour law and Work from Home seminars, group trainings and meetings with successful entrepreneurs, special classes for children with autism, master classes on professions, and other activities.

This interactive educational programme provides career guidance with a focus on the telecoms industry and social adaptation for children in orphanages and foster homes. The lessons help children acquire the necessary skills for living self-sufficiently in society: to set tasks, organise teamwork, communicate with people, and constructively solve problems as they arise. The role playing method gives children the opportunity to independently take part in a specially designed dilemma to gain valuable life experience, understand their personal areas for improvement, and learn new skills. An interactive game teaching telecoms professions is currently being developed within the Midday project.

The programme is being run by PJSC Rostelecom and Social Development Foundation Polden (Midday).

In 2018, a Digital Equality module of educational games was developed for the first time within the project, career guidance with a focus on the telecoms industry was organised for participants, and master classes in acting skills were held.

An integral part of the adaptation programme is to hold the annual charity balls within the Midday project: in the festive atmosphere of a dance ball, children not only have fun but also get acquainted with ball culture and etiquette, learn historical dances, and most importantly have an opportunity they are deprived of in an orphanage — to communicate with adults on equal footing. Rostelecom employee volunteers are delighted to provide them such an opportunity. The 2018 Midday Charity Ball for children from Moscow orphanages and social rehabilitation centres was held for the sixth time at the Pashkov House. The festival gathered over 250 young participants.

Rostelecom’s branch in the Kabardino-Balkarian Republic, together with the Shag Vpered (Step Forward) charity helping children with neurodegenerative disorders and the I Can Help volunteer association introduced a project with the same name.

The goal is to help parents of children with special needs adapt to society. Within a month, teachers and psychologists of the Institute of Pedagogy, Psychology, and Physical and Sport Education of the Kabardino-Balkarian State University conducted a course of lessons for 50 families. The programme consisted of four educational modules aimed at strengthening parenting skills for those raising children with disabilities and providing psychological counselling and information for preventing emotional disorders. While the parents attended lessons, their children played games with volunteers of the association.

In 2018, Rostelecom launched its own volunteer project, Job Factory, helping high school students determine their own professional path. Within the project, volunteers from the Company’s Kemerovo Branch held a number of excursions to the different enterprises in the region’s capital for 43 children from Orphanage No. 2.

The first Job Factory excursion was to Rostelecom’s Kemerovo local telecoms operation centre, and the guides were Company employees. Young people learned how information technology is developing in Kuzbass and got acquainted with the history of Rostelecom. A master class on welding optical fibre was held for children at the service and technological support site No. 1. In Rostelecom’s Document Communication Department, guests were shown an algorithm for sending and receiving telegrams marked with a route index. For example, 215099 is the index of the city of Kemerovo.

Everyone can help those who have fallen into a difficult life situation. Each year, Rostelecom employees donate their personal funds through charitable foundations to help seriously ill children and lonely elderly people, including within the Let’s Help Together initiative.

In preparation for the New Year’s holidays, every employee of the Company creates a small miracle by giving gifts to children in sponsored orphanages as part of Rostelecom’s Become a Santa charity drive. Rostelecom employees have been carrying out this mission for six years leading up to the eve of each New Year. During this time, Rostelecom has fulfilled the New Year dreams of thousands of children deprived of parental care and those who are in a difficult life situation. Wishlists from the children at sponsored orphanages are published on the corporate portal, and employees wishing to participate can choose a gift and a child who will receive the gift. This year, children wished for remote-control toy cars, cosmetic sets, paint-by-numbers sets, music speakers, and headphones.

Become a Santa in the Amur Region

In 2018, employees of the Amur Branch provided New Year’s gifts to children from the State Autonomous Institution of the Amur Region — the Rostok Konstantinovsky Social Assistance Centre for Children and Families. Gifts for 31 children residing at the orphanage were collected, and the gift giving ceremony was held on the eve of the New Year. A letter of gratitude was offered to Rostelecom. The branch plans to traditionally take part in this event in 2019.

Become a Santa in Oimyakon ulus

In 2018, the Sakhatelecom Branch held two charity events for children from sponsored organisations, providing New Year’s gifts to orphans and children at the Ust-Nera Child Support Centre (Oimyakon ulus). The branch also allocated funds in the amount of RUB 200 thousand to buy a 3D printer for the Sakha (Yakutia) Republic Special (Correctional) General Educational Boarding School for Hearing and Visually Impaired Children.

Become a Santa in the Tomsk Region

Rostelecom employees arranged gifts on New Year’s Day for the children from the Assistance Centre for Children Deprived of Parental Care in the village of Bakchar in the Tomsk Region. The Company’s volunteers prepared a programme which included fun games, contests, and dances with Grandfather Frost and the Snow Maiden. The children were most impressed and dazzled by the dance floor, decorated with glittering silver confetti.

Rostelecom employees regularly donate blood. In 2018, the Donor Day involved 20 employees in the Khabarovsk Branch, 64 in Kaluga, 80 in Saransk, 100 in Magadan, more than 150 in Kostroma, 90 in Moscow, 90 in Yaroslavl, and 12 in the Sakhatelecom Branch. Similar campaigns were also held in other regions.

Donor Days in Magadan

In Magadan, Donor Days are held every two to three months, in which only completely healthy people are permitted to donate. The partnership between Rostelecom and Magadan Regional Blood Transfusion Station began some years ago — Donor Days have been taking place on site at the enterprise’s premises since 2012. The employees of Rostelecom’s Magadan Branch participated in the Donor Day campaign four times in 2018, donating about fifteen litres of blood in total throughout the year.

Donorship in Novosibirsk

In Novosibirsk on New Year’s Eve, 37 Rostelecom employees took part in the first donor campaign of the Novosibirsk Branch — #WeCannotManageItWithoutYou. In the macroregional branch’s main office building, the Blood Centre deployed a mobile donor centre, with all safety requirements and sanitary methods followed.