Insurance group’s CSR campaign - connecting young and elderly

Giving up is not our thing

RedCross Savo-Karelia District and insurance company LähiTapiola East worked together, young people got jobs and elderly got help - supported by WorkPilots.

LähiTapiola Itä is an insurance company owned by its customers. We are located in Finland in the East (Itä) are an independent regional company belonging to the group. We are strong and responsible local player in North Karelia as well as in the Upper and North-Eastern Savo, close to our customers. We're considering us as a the “Life Security Company”.

We make social impact in our region by promoting local well-being and vitality. The priorities are children, young people, the elderly, education and entrepreneurship. We have also set up by the social responsibility working group where we come up with ideas and consider various donations.

Connecting young and elderly

In this idea, we wanted to support young and value the interaction between different generations. We decided to set aside 80,000 euros for this, which is almost half of the amount set aside for safety of life impact projects this year. We decided to create the implementation in collaboration with WorkPilots. In this way young person begins to form also own CV in the platform for other opportunities. We chose to donate hours to various SPR local departments, and they found the local eldercare places. In addition, the participating departments would receive a separate donation for children and youth.

Then why the Red Cross? For us it is absolutely essential for us that partner is responsible and trustworthy. Our district company has a comprehensive and, above all, well functioning network. We wanted to be active in the whole Eastern area, and with RedCross summer work with the elderly could come true in as many places as possible. The Finnish Red Cross is also the nationwide partner for the whole group, so this helped us all to bring nationwide co-operation to local level and help even smaller communities.

I introduced this idea to our district office, we thought together practical implementation and division of labor, from there that co-operation was set in motion and was further refined along the way.

Together, we decided to organize information sessions for young people's recruiters at different schools on Valentine's Day, while the young people would be told also about saving (which is one of our business areas). So everything was ready for the summer, RedCross departments were actively involved, jobs had been agreed and young people had already been selected.

The interest did not discourage either when came the pandemic, which revolutionized everything. The restrictions came into force and very soon it became clear that the planned work in elderly homes would need to be canceled. A common thought emerged quickly that the jobs promised to young people would not be canceled.

This issue was taken up in the RedCross departments and they did a lot of work for new jobs to be found there. It succeeded and nearly 50 young people got a summer job. The initially thought two week period changed to new opportunities by doing small fragmented tasks during the whole summer. The promise to young people was not deceived, it feels good, and grateful for everyones help. Thank you very much for that.

I attended the mid summer party arranged by “Elderly care” social organisation (Vanhusten Tuki ry).

Many elderly people were for the first time outdoors, we had lovely food (including finnish sausage), enjoyed the beautiful weather and just did general chatting, it was nice. I also met some young people who were the helping the event. Got to hear lovely experiences from the project.

We have excellent stakeholders in this project, including local media company who told this story in local newspapers. Part of that kind of collaboration is visibility, to increase people’s awareness in the RedCross and the valuable work the do locally. The diversity of their activities becomes known and this way perhaps new members and supporters can be found. Newspaper articles have created visibility and information has been passed.

As of this writing end of summer 2020, a large proportion of young people have already done their jobs, everything has gone well. Especially gratifying has been that after all and with changed jobs most of them were related in one way or another helping the elderly.

This effort would not have been possible without all the support from RedCross and their local offices and our common intent to help young people. Giving up is not for us, there were many curves on the way but we still managed to do what we intended.

I've been in contact with many RedCross departments and have got so happy feedback which I have enjoyed. Thanks again to all - it has been a pleasure to do this project with all of you.

Mari Pykäläinen, LähiTapiola Itä, Corporate Social Responsibility Working Group, member of the board