In September the newspaper The Moscow Times held a conference titled Corporate Social Responsibility: Best Practices Internationally. The press tour of the international boarding school under construction in Dilijan was mention as an example of effective promotion of a philanthropy project.
The expert panel at the conference included representatives of leading businesses in the Russia – Nestle, BP Russia, Heineken, Coca-Cola, Severstal, MasterCard, RD Group and leading business media – The Moscow Times, Harvard Business Review and Vedomosti.
The experts shared their experience in organizing and implementing social projects and also touched upon such an important aspect as coverage and promotion of CSR projects in the media. The business representatives agreed that the press is not very eager to write about major corporate social projects.
Viktoria Rozhok, Director of the Public Relations Department of RD Group, spoke about positive experience in the promotion of social projects in the media. In 2013 the company held large-scale press tours for leading Russian business and industry media to the international boarding school UWC Dilijan in Armenia. “Following the visit of the correspondents to the school in Dilijan, we succeeded in achieve recognition of this unique educational project and they began writing about it in business and trade media,” Viktoria explained. “As a result of the press tour reports came out on the radio station Business FM, in the newswires Interfax and RIA Novosti, in the magazines Expert and Russky Reporter, the newspaper Kommersant and also in trade publications.”
WHAT IS UWC DILIJAN
The international boarding school UWC Dilijan is a philanthropy project initiated and founded by the well-known businessman and philanthropist Ruben Vardanyan together with his wife Veronika Zonabend. The construction of the school is being supported by the government of Armenia and personally by President Serzh Sargsyan. UWC Dilijan was built according to the designs of a leading London architecture bureau – Tim Flynn Architects.