(source: Courtesy of Orange Slovensko)
Each strong company should – apart from making profit – also focus on its social responsibility towards employees, customers, business partners and citizens. At Orange Slovensko, we are among the leaders in this field as we have been building our business on solid and reliable foundations for many years and our driving forces are responsibility and quality services.As the success of every society directly depends on educated citizens who will be the source of future growth of the whole economy, Orange Slovensko has consistently and methodically supported education over many years. Through our Konto Orange effort we have successfully supported 17 grant programmes covering 1,079 projects with more than a €1 million over the past six years. And Konto Orange keeps enhancing its activities. We announced four new grant programmes in the education sphere in 2009.In addition to our support for education, Orange Slovensko is helping medically and socially disabled people. Through our programs, we help improve the lives of handicapped people, members of minority groups, those who are socially weak and those suffering from illnesses by helping them integrate into society or acquire needed skills.Every human activity has an impact on the environment. Orange Slovensko is well aware of this and for that reason we are taking long-term steps to control and reduce negative impacts on the environment through our System of Environmental Managing.
Our company has received many awards for its CSR activities, including Honourable Mention Via Bona 2008, among others. Orange Slovensko strongly believes in the importance of continuing its responsible business practices during this time of economic crisis. We believe that now is the perfect time for companies to demonstrate the importance of seriously and honestly implementing the principles of responsible enterprise. Such a responsible approach to doing business can be one of the most effective tools for companies to ease and relieve the impacts of the crisis during this difficult period.
Our company is engaged in a wide spectrum of activities as a responsible corporate citizen and we wish to highlight three crucial areas where Orange Slovensko is making a difference.
Educating for success
As a responsible mobile operator, our company is well-aware that technologies bring not just useful benefits, but also sometimes risks. For that reason, for the third year, Orange Slovensko is continuing its programme to educate parents and teachers about schemes and snares that these mobile technologies may bring and how to prevent children from being hurt. Last year, this programme’s activities were enhanced through our support of a network of psychologists actively present in schools.
In 2008, our company developed the first Internet school of its kind in Slovakia. The Orange-supported website www.oskole.sk links the most modern Internet technologies with the best professionally-prepared educational materials for school-age children. In less than a year, this Internet school has won tens of thousands of fans and supporters not only among students but also among their teachers and parents.
Helping the disabled
We have done this over the long term not only through Konto Orange but also through mobile financial collections. Over the past nine years these collections have become firmly established and, in 2008 alone, almost nine million crowns were collected through our efforts. The green-and-orange quatrefoil (four-leaf) clover has become synonymous with transparency and a guarantee that these funds are used responsibly to benefit those who are really in need.
But our support consists of more than just financial collections because Orange Slovensko also extends special services and price reductions to the disabled, such as special offers of mobile phones and services for the handicapped and socially weak as well as barrier-free access to our salesrooms.
Respecting the environment
This system comprises many projects which together build our responsible action in protecting the environment. Our company – and our employees – are separating waste; we are launching electronic approval of documents; and we are helping to decrease production of CO2 by supporting the European Mobility Week.
Likewise, Orange Slovensko is enhancing awareness about proper collection and disposal of dysfunctional phones and their accessories and we are developing the possibility of clients using electronic invoices rather than paper. Together, all these efforts can make a difference because each human activity, no matter how small, does have an impact on the environment. At Orange Slovensko we are determined to make our environmental ‘footprint’ as small as possible.
