The Programme for Social Transformation through Encouraging Social Responsibility is aimed at the non-governmental sector, the business and society in general. The goal of the programme is to improve the social conditions of disadvantaged groups by stimulating good practices and community work through providing access to independent funding for civil organisations working in the social sphere and stimulating social responsibility. The programme is implemented in partnership with the European Knowledge Exchange Forum with the generous support of the MATRA Programme of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Kingdom of the Netherlands.
The programme envisages developing the capacity of Tulip Foundation and other Bulgarian civil organisations;training and exchange of experience; meetings and discussions with representatives of the business and the media; campaigns and events aimed at encouraging social responsibility among the business and the public; support of social projects of civil organisations.
This project is supported by MATRA Programme of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Kingdom of the Netherlands.
Tulip Foundation was a partner with Capital newspaper in organising the third annual conference on Corporate Social responsibility Business with a Cause, which took place on 6 December 2012 at Sheraton hotel. The aim of the event was to provide a forum for sharing ideas, experience, contacts and opportunities for a dialog between the government and the business on key matters in the field of CSR.
The first panel was dedicated to "The role of the state in creating a socially responsible business environment”. Bengt Johansson, CSR Ambassador of Sweden; Henning Kloster-Jensen, Deputy Head of Section for Economic and Commercial Affairs at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Norway and Vesselin Ilkov, Head of European coordination Unit, European Affairs and International Relations Directorate, Ministry of Labour and Social Policy, Bulgaria shared their experience. The moderator Ognian Trajanov, Co-founder and Board Member of the National Network of the UN Global Compact in Bulgaria, presented the views of the business in Bulgaria.
Guest speaker at the event was Eerde de Swart, Senior CSR Manager at CSR Netherlands, who spoke about “How to win by doing good". Mr. de Swart presented the activities and the experience of his organisation which unites more than 2000 socially responsible business organisations in the Netherlands. MVO Netherlands is an important informational centre which supports its members in their efforts to be socially responsible with trainings, meetings, events, share of experience, brokering among the business, civil sector and local and national authorities. He shared with the participants various examples from the practice of companies, small and medium enterprises. The presentation of Eerde de Swart provoked numerous questions from the audience.
In the second panel Nikolay Hristov, General Manager at Chelopech Mining; Yassen Guev, Corporate Affairs Director at GLOBUL; Martin Arvidsson, CFO at Volvo Bulgaria; Svetlin Nakov, Manager Technical Training at Telerik; Daniel Boestad, Vice President for Central and Eastern Europe and the Balkans at SAAB and Kristiana Chakarova, Corporate Communications Manager at Coca-Cola Hellenic shared their good practices. The presented examples were in different fields of corporate responsibility – human resources, environment, partnerships, support for local community, education, development of children, social projects. Maria Petkova, director of Tulip Foundation moderated the discussion. She shared the successful experience of Tulip Foundation in organising Marketplaces in 11 cities in Bulgaria in cooperation with local bunnies and civil organisations and the municipalities.
Successful practices in support for children in Bulgaria were presented in the frame of the afternoon panel. Tanja Radocaj, Representative for Bulgaria of UNICEF; Emil Angelov, Deputy CEO of Piraeus Bank Bulgaria and Cvetomira Lubenova, expert marketing and fundraising at “For Our children” Foundation participated in discussion moderated by Ekaterina Popova, editor at Capital.
More Information about the event, the agenda and the speakers
