This time the Improve Your Community with Your Own Hands Competition bringing together town and village improvement projects involves 32 communities in 11 regions of Ukraine. One can win a grant of up to UAH 80 thousand to implement their ideas. Preference is given to projects aimed at creating a barrier-free and inclusive environment.
Each resident of the area where the competition is held can submit an application with a community improvement project. Next the competition committee will decide on the successful projects, which will receive funding. This year's project focus is barrier-free environment, which means developing an accessible socially-oriented environment for people with disabilities, young children and pregnant women, and the elderly.
You can find out more and apply here: DTEK Mini-Grant Competition (dtek.com)
"Improve Your Community with Your Own Hands provides an incentive for the development of cities and regions where DTEK Group companies operate. The company has been a reliable partner of the local communities since 2013. During this time, about 1,500 projects were implemented as part of the competition. This year, the competition's geography expanded to areas where DTEK Naftogaz and DTEK Renewables operate, which means that we will be able to support and implement more projects together with the communities. The special focus of this year's projects is barrier-free environment. DTEK joined the First Lady's Business Without Barriers initiative, and we invite the competitors to pay attention to creating a barrier-free environment, accessibility and comfort in line with the European standards. Our mission is to work for the progress and prosperity of society. And such initiatives are our contribution to the development of Ukraine”, said Dmytro Saharuk, DTEK's Chief Operating Officer.
As a socially responsible business interested in the sustainable development of communities, DTEK supports projects aimed at increasing the competitiveness of regions and the quality of life in cities, towns and villages. The company's social projects are based on the ESG principles and meet the UN Sustainable Development Goals.
Improve Your Community with Your Own Hands is a competition held by DTEK to provide grants for improvement of communities and development of cooperation between local residents, businesses and administrations. The competition has been held since 2012 together with the municipal authorities. This year the project has expanded its geography and now operates in 11 regions of Ukraine. The competition brings together public organisations, associations of co-owners of apartment buildings (and other associations of residents), and citizens' action groups. Between 2012 and 2020, 1,500 projects were implemented as part of Improve Your Community with Your Own Hands. 78,000 Ukrainians have taken part in the community improvement initiative.
In 2016, the Improve Your Community with Your Own Hands Project received a certificate of the International CSR competition JCI Culture Best Practice for the company's projects being aligned with the UN sustainable development goals and their original achievement, and in 2020, the project was shortlisted by the Young Lions Marketers Competition 2020.