“DTEK, together with a number of large state and private companies, signed the “Business without Barriers” declaration, which is an initiative, led by the First Lady Olena Zelenska, to introduce and disseminate the principle of employment accessibility in Ukraine. We, as a socially responsible business, intend to actively implement this practice within our company and on behalf of our clients”, Maxim Timchenko said.
According to him, this year DTEK launched a new long-term strategy, which is based on the UN Sustainable Development Goals and complies with the ESG (Environmental, Social, Governance) principles. The DTEK CEO stressed that this strategy reflects the mission of the business - to work in support of Ukraine’s progress and prosperity.
“In the context of the world’s rapid transformation, the role of companies is fundamentally changing, since they are entrusted with a social role and responsibility for ensuring sustainable development and solving global problems,” said M. Timchenko.
He expressed confidence that every business today must create norms and rules that ensure equal rights and opportunities to access work, in addition to services for various social groups that have experienced the negative impact of restrictions related to disability, age, and gender. The DTEK CEO emphasized that the company already has significant experience in the implementation of accessibility for both its employees and customers.
“We employ almost three thousand people with disabilities, we are actively introducing the best services for our clients so that our services are as accessible as possible. Additionally, we are implementing many social projects across multiple categories, which has seen the active involvement of people from varying backgrounds. One of these is the project to popularise football "Come on, Let’s play!", which has seen thousands of children play football, including children with disabilities”, said M. Timchenko.
As the First Lady of Ukraine Olena Zelenska noted, every day thousands of Ukrainians live behind barriers: they feel difficulties in moving, using services, working and communicating. “To rectify this situation, I invited to the dialogue representatives of large companies, which are already implementing the best barrier-free solutions in their business processes. Our goal is to remove barriers in business”, she said.
According to O. Zelenska, building a barrier-free business in Ukraine is a complicated, complex and systemic process. It depends both on legislation and on the actions of the state, as well as on companies and people themselves.
The companies that signed the declaration intend to use the best practices for implementing a barrier-free environment to create opportunities for social inclusion for all social groups, including people with disabilities, the elderly, parents with children under six years, women and youth.
