Voluntary Commitment
ALTANA supports employees who want to work on a volunteer
basis in areas where this is meaningful and realizable.
At our St. Louis site, the management promotes such commitment
in daily work. For example, employees can agree
to make monthly donations to United Way Worldwide each
year. The money is taken from the staff members’ salaries
and subsequently topped up by the company. In addition, they
have various options for making project-related monetary
or material donations each month. The resulting contributions
add up to around 500 U.S. dollars a month. The money
was allocated, for example, to the local section of the American
Lung Association or the American Red Cross. Some
employees again helped pack food packages on the annual
St. Louis World Food Day.
Donations for Nepal
Following the devastating earthquake in Nepal in April 2015,
ALTANA Group employees donated a total of 25,000 euros,
which the company doubled to 50,000 euros. ALTANA provided
this money to “Aktion Deutschland Hilft” to help
finance
the work of the aid organization “arche noVa” in a
large community consisting of nine villages in the mountains
north of Kathmandu.
The aid organization used the money to rebuild Janaki
elementary school in the main town, which was completely
destroyed by the earthquake. Given the logistical
challenge that the steep, difficult-to-access region poses
regarding
transport of construction material and heavy machinery,
the aid organization decided to erect the building
utilizing prefabricated elements used in industrial construction
around the world. The comparably inexpensive sandwich
panels have a number of advantages: They are easy to carry
and assemble and join together into a stable, earthquake-resistant
building. Today, the elementary school students can
study again in the rebuilt school with its three classrooms.
They use the collected rainwater for washing their hands and
for flushing the toilets, which were also completely reconstructed.
96 Social Commitment