Employee Involvement

At all Volkswagen facilities, there is a long tradition of commitment to the civil society. In close cooperation with Volkswagen AG Human Resources and Social Affairs, donations from employees are assigned to social projects such as the Gifhorner Tafel, Arbeiterwohlfahrt, Kinderheimat Gifhorn and Eltern- und Freundeskreis e.V. zur Förderung des Zentrums für Entwicklungsdiagnostik und Sozialpädiatrie (ZEUS).

Examples of our employees’ commitment include the “One Hour For The Future” campaign and the aid project for Tsunami victims “New Hope after the Tsunami”. Throughout the group, donations totalling € 800,000 were collected and the Group contributed € 1 million itself. In cooperation with children’s charity terre des hommes, these funds were channelled to a children’s aid project on the coast of the Indian state of Andrha Pradesh, among other projects. A key aspect for Volkswagen is the long-term nature of the aid projects concerned.

Volkswagen employees participating in the “One Hour For The Future” campaign donate their wages for one hour’s work or the “small change” on their salary statement every month to help street children. Since the campaign was launched in 1998, the worldwide workforce of the Volkswagen Group has donated in excess of € 7.6 million.

The employee event held to celebrate the 25 millionth Golf was a resounding success. The draw which was held brought in some € 78,643 for the association Ready4work. Together with other partners, Ready4work supports RVA, a regional training association. Since 2003, Ready4work has given 175 young people prospects of a career.

In 2007, Volkswagen launched the pilot project “pro Ehrenamt” (in favour of volunteering) to pave the way for social commitment for even more employees. This project offers volunteer roles to employees. More than 130 volunteer “job profiles” have already been drawn up in cooperation with over 100 charities.

...needs strong personalities: Joachim Franz
In 1990, Joachim Franz weighed 120 kilograms and was still a smoker. Then came the radical change. He turned his lifestyle on its head, turned fat into muscle and took up extreme sports – a journey that has taken him from marathon and Ironman triathlon to the Raid Gauloises, the world’s toughest adventure race. But the endurance sportsman only discovered his real mission in life out on the road, on the fringes of the competitive events he was taking part in: in HIV-plagued South Africa, in the death houses of Manila and in the hostels of the Maiti aid organisation in Nepal, where former forced prostitutes now infected with AIDS are cared for. Then, after the death of one of his friends from the insidious virus, Joachim Franz knew he could no longer carry on pretending the disease was no concern of his. “I felt we all had to do something. Every one of us!” He found support for aids awareness expeditions, spectacular world-wide campaigns to heighten public awareness and raise funds, at Volkswagen, where he worked. He joined Volkswagen as an apprentice toolmaker in 1978 and now works in the healthcare department, among other things as an ambassador in matters of HIV/AIDS.

Global social responsibility
Especially at its facilities in South Africa and Brazil, Volkswagen is affected directly by the global threat of HIV/AIDS. Management has responded by introducing programmes aimed at prevention, medical support and reintegration. Yet that is still not enough for a company such as Volkswagen. In this respect, too, global players carry a special global social responsibility. This is precisely where the interests of Volkswagen coincide with the ideas and energy of Joachim Franz. We hope that this energy proves to be inexhaustible, as HIV is likely to remain on the agenda.

With the number of new HIV infections once again on the rise in central Europe, last summer Joachim Franz and his team completed their first expedition on home territory – accompanied by a convoy of Volkswagen Commercial Vehicles, under the patronage of Germany’s Chancellor Angela Merkel.

The next major challenge is planned for autumn 2008. For the “7th aids awareness expedition” six runners aim to complete a route from the North Cape in Norway across Europe and Africa to the Cape of Good Hope – 17,000 kilometres in just 75 days! And once again Volkswagen will be with them every step of the way.