Ukraine: Rebuilding starts at Social Active Day
Ruins. And among them, colleagues from our Ukrainian VIG company Kniazha are working. I received these impressive pictures from Ukraine showing Kniazha’s Social Active Day in a message from CEO Dmytro Grytsuta in mid-October.
The Social Active Day has been an institution in the Group for over a decade and was an initiative of Wiener Städtische Versicherungsverein. It is our day of good deeds, on which we each dedicate one working day per year to sustainable and social projects.
However, the photos of this very special Social Active Day on a warm autumn day near Kyiv particularly touched me. The colleagues from Kniazha, one of our three Ukrainian VIG companies, were helping the owners of private houses to rebuild their homes. The houses had been destroyed during the Russian invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.
Reconstructing is a matter close to our hearts
Kniazha CEO Dmytro Grytsuta was also part of one of the Social Active Day groups in the photos. His group worked in Hostomel in the yard of an elderly couple's house, removing rubble, stabilising the basement and building a smaller house in place of the destroyed one. The couple had initially been evacuated to the western regions of Ukraine, but they have since returned and taken temporary shelter in a trailer. On the Social Active Day, the walls of their house were rising again.
A second group around CFO Vyacheslav Kalyta worked in the neighbouring village of Horenka, which, like Hostomel, is just a few kilometres away from Bucha – a place that gained sad fame during the war. This group too cleaned up and removed the ruins of a destroyed house.
The hard work that our colleagues have put in makes it clear that rebuilding their country is a matter close to everyone's heart. These impressive pictures of this Social Active Day of Kniazha can only provide a glimpse of how much work still lies ahead for Ukraine. And unfortunately, there is still no end in sight to the fighting…
Since the beginning of the Russian invasion of Ukraine, I have been in constant dialogue with our colleagues from Ukraine as the Board member responsible for the country. And I am deeply impressed by the spirit of the Ukrainians.
Insurance cooperation to rebuild Ukraine
We will continue to support this commitment – also with our VIG Family Fund, which is available to the colleagues of our Ukrainian companies (more on this in the blog post on our support measures). In addition, in June 2023, VIG, together with Lloyd’s in London and AON, agreed to work together to support the reconstruction of Ukraine.
To this end, AON and Lloyd’s, together with VIG, are committed to building foreign (re)insurance capacity to strengthen Ukraine’s economic resilience and increase the country’s recovery and reconstruction. VIG will primarily contribute its local insurance expertise in the Ukrainian market. This will allow the expertise and capabilities of the Ukrainian insurance market to be leveraged to strengthen and expand the domestic (re)insurance supply, providing an essential financial mechanism to support the reconstruction efforts.
