How-To Guide: How companies can help Ukraine now

Short- and long-term measures to provide immediate and integration assistance to refugees.

The current political situation is very hard at the moment and we are looking for ways to help Ukraine. After the abrupt change in the lives of Ukrainians at the end of February, more than one million people have already fled to surrounding countries such as Poland, Hungary and Slovakia to find help and protection. Meanwhile, Germany has taken in 270.000 war refugees. Most people lost their homes and were only able to take a fraction of their personal belongings with them. Many even had to leave their relatives behind – a situation that is simply unimaginable for us.

Act now!

But how? How can we help the Ukrainians with our existing resources help? Both in a material and financial way, but also in an emotional and mental way. How can we create a sanctuary in which refugees can participate safely and not feel like strangers?

One thing is certain: each and every one of us, whether a private individual or a company, can make an important contribution to this safe harbor . With this blog post we would like to show you possibilities by means of which you can have an important impact – whether in the short or long term.

Every little deed counts: How we can immediately help with limited resources

To help people in need, every little help from companies and employees will be of great importance.

How can social business events encourage?

Businesses can make an important difference, by promoting the social commitment of their employees. This is possible in many ways:

1. Flexible working time: Companies can offer flexible working hours to employees who wish to become socially involved.
2. Paid vacation hours: Companies can offer paid vacation hours for the time in which employees are socially engaged.
3. Communication: Companies can communicate the social commitment of their employees both internally and externally. On the one hand, this is advantageous for the company itself. On the other hand, it creates visibility and motivates other companies and employees to become socially involved as well.

How can employees be socially involved?

1. Demonstrate: Come together and stand for peace.
2. Donations:
3. • Financial Donations: All over the internet we encounter opportunities to donate financially. Even outside the net we can collect and donate a lot of money through self-organized fundraising events like charity events or a bake sale within the company.
   • Donations of supplies: Look around your offices or even your homes and donate items such as hygiene products (toiletries or femenine products), clothes and shoes, blankets, technology or even furniture and mattresses, for example. These donations in kind will be accepted by relief organizations and distributed accordingly.
4. Provide sleeping places / accommodation: About many online portals, we can register free rooms and thus refugees in our home or in vacation apartments. In this way, the refugees are given not only a place to sleep, but also a home. In the best case, you manage to create a place of well-being for the refugees after their traumatic experience and integrate them during family evenings or excursions.

Looking to the future: aid opportunities with a long-term impact

Aside from the immediate relief efforts mentioned above, it is all the more important to help refugees on a long-term level. This includes, above all, important integration measures:

1. Companies can volunteer by:
   • Offering German language courses
   • Offering babysitting programs so refugees can go to work
   • Offering free workshops, such as in the IT field, so that refugees have better chances of finding jobs.
2. Create jobs: In recent weeks, many new job portals have emerged that allow companies to publish jobs. Here refugees can get a good overview of open positions and apply for them quite easily. These job portals include https://www.jobaidukraine.com/ and https://www.uatalents.com/
3. Bringing people together: Another important integration measure is to bring people together and create a strong group feeling. This can be achieved through various projects. This is a great opportunity for companies to integrate refugees at team building events. We at GREWP have teamed up with our providers to pick out two great joint team events for teams and Ukrainian refugees. Companies can book these events for their teams and reserve places for refugees at the same time. GREWP will distribute these available places and invite the refugees to the events. In addition, 15% of the proceeds are donated through the donation organization https://www.wearemykori.org/ and donated for immediate relief.
   • Folding peace doves: As a symbol of peace, participants can switch off together in the soothing and relaxing art of origami
   • Enjoy an interesting and common quiz event. Here everyone can guess together and learn new things at the same time

We hope that our How-To-Guide could give you new inspiration and ideas for ways to help. Let’s act together now and do everything possible to help Ukraine.

Lea Schmidt | Customer Relations Manager for GREWP