OREANDA-NEWS. October 12, 2012. The jury have announced the winners of the social video contest ‘Change Your Town for the Better’. They had to choose between 33 video clips that highlight the challenges of eleven Ukrainian towns and settlements.
Anton Stavytskyi from Donetsk with his video ‘Happy Kids - Sunny Towns’ won the major award, which is a UAH 10,000 certificate for household appliances. His video was about a desperate need for safe children’s playgrounds in the town of Dobropillia. Oleksandr Mykhalchuk was second with his video ‘Light in Lviv’. The third prize was given to Olena Kotylevska and her daughter from the town of Shchastia with their video ‘Imagination at Sports’.
 
Iulia Zhyganova from Simferopol won the People's Choice Award – site visit to one of DTEK’s companies, electric car test drive and dinner at a restaurant. Her project ‘Chance for Life… Helping Stray Pets’ was supported by 175 Facebook users.
 
Iryna Siedova with her video ‘Is Kerch to Be Washed Out? Solution or Sentence’ won the category ‘Important for Housing and Utilities’ specially designed by DTEK. She will be invited to DTEK’s office to discuss the energy efficiency of Kerch water supply system, share her thoughts and ideas on the problem and suggest ways to improve the situation. There she will also learn more about the company’s developments in the area. The jury highly valued Andriy Sydorenko’s video ‘Kyiv Needs Your Care’. It will be sent to Kyiv State City Administration.
 
“We were glad to receive so many video clips even though we designed pretty tough and quite unusual terms for our contest,” said the jury chairman Alexander Tolkach, DTEK’s Director for External Affairs. “The most important thing is that almost all the contestants have managed to convey their true feelings and emotions. The contest has demonstrated that there are a lot of people who care and together we are a power to be reckoned with. We can see that there are four areas our contestants are most passionate about: the leisure-time activities and education of children; generation and utilisation of wastes; stray and abandoned pets, and environment.

 We were happy to notice that key areas of DTEK’s social development efforts are very similar to the areas of concerns of the region residents. Environmental protection is one of our investment priorities today. All our projects on operations modernisation have an environmental element. As part of our environmental policy we take part in international projects on wastes utilisation. We are also ready to continue assisting the towns and cities in the development of such entrepreneurial initiatives. The construction of leisure-time and sport facilities for children is one of the five top directions for DTEK’s social infrastructure investments. DTEK will allocate about UAH 400 million for the communities development programmes, including for social facilities, in 2012.”
 
Early 2012, to improve the efficiency of its social investment, DTEK decided to prepare three-year Strategies of Social Partnership with each of the towns and cities where the Company has operations. Strategies are being designed by special working groups set up from the representatives of local and regional authorities, local residents, experts and DTEK’s employees. All contestants will be able to work together with the groups. Furthermore, we will send all contest video clips to the mayors of the towns and cities and recommend them to get in touch with their creators.