On Monday 15 December Renault Romania and the association Ateliere Fără Frontiere (Workshops without Borders) met in Mioveni, together with representatives of several education institutions and not-for-profit organisations in Argeş county, to finalise the digital solidarity project initiated in October this year.

Renault Romania donated, within a festive ceremony, 320 IT equipment (computers and laptops) to representatives of 20 education institutions (kindergartens, schools and high schools) and 8 not-for-profit organisations who won the competition (see the full list of winners here). This equipment was made available to Ateliere Fără Frontiere association to be refurbished by their staff, who were reintegrated on the labour market.

„We were very enthusiastic about launching this initiative, together with our colleagues from IT and from Ateliere Fără Frontiere. We appreciated that such a project has two categories of beneficiaries: on the one hand children, who will have computers to learn on, and on the other hand the employees of Ateliere Fără Frontiere who worked on refurbishing the equipment, who were reintegrated professionally within the association.

In the summer we settled the last project details and then we delivered the equipment to Ateliere Fără Frontiere. Two months ago we launched the registration for the digital solidarity project. We envisaged to offer equal chances to all participants, education institutions (schools, high schools, kindergartens, faculties, universities) and not-for-profit organisations (associations, foundations, federations) in Argeş and Dâmboviţa counties, where Renault performs its main activities, at Dacia Plants and the Technical Centre in Titu. We greatly relied on our colleagues within all entities to ensure that the message reaches those in need of computers. 111 eligible projects were registered, of which 75 in Argeş and 36 in Dâmboviţa. A jury including our employees, employees of Ateliere Fără Frontiere as well as external partners selected 70 winning projects, based on assessments of the registered projects, according to objective criteria. We delivered part of the equipment today in Mioveni, and the rest are to be distributed both in Argeş and in Dâmboviţa over the next period”, said Anca Oreviceanu, executive director for Communication and CSR at Renault Romania.

Eight employees of Ateliere Fără Frontiere were involved in the equipment refurbishment, persons who had been in great difficulty and were reintegrated in the labour market. Dragoş Purcaru, 22, is a passionate of computer games and documentaries. He had his first computer when he was 8. “At first I used to break them, later on I came to repair them”, said Dragoş. Mihai Anastasiu, 58, a big Renault fan, worked in the same team. He visited Europe on board of his Megane. He joined the association 2 years ago and thousands of computers went through his hands: “First I performed a quality control on the equipment from Renault Romania, and they passed it.” Marius Marin Niculae, with the longest presence in the team, also known as DJ because of his passion for music and his experience in this filed, is 32 and is from Bucharest. He overflows with energy and is passionate with cycling. Similarly to Mihai, he worked on thousands of computers and is always thinking of children. He would like to continue his professional life in IT under the same motto: “What I repair never comes back to the service”.

Ateliere Fără Frontiere is a Romanian not-for-profit association established in 2008, a social enterprise for insertion through social economy. Its mission is the social, professional and civic insertion of persons in great difficulty. More information here.

CSR Renault Romania

In Romania Renault applies the same worldwide social responsibility policy of the Group, with four priority themes:

• Road security - reducing the number of road accidents and developing expertise in this area in emerging countries, by training and awareness actions (Security and Mobility for All)
• Mobility for All - designing products which are better adapted to new uses, new challenges of urban infrastructure
• Environmental protection - reducing polluting emissions of vehicles and implementing an environmental protection management system within Renault Group, along the entire value chain
• Human capital - promoting diversity of talents and equality of chances for all, particularly as a means to optimise group performance

Renault Romania

Renault Romania currently employs about 16,600 staff. The main company activities are performed at the Dacia Plants in Mioveni (The Vehicle Plant, the Mechanical and Chassis Plant, the Logistics Department, including the ILN centre), Dacia Moulds (Piteşti), the design centre Renault Design Central Europe, Renault Technologie Roumanie (which includes the Technical Centre in Titu) and the trade department Renault Commercial Roumanie (including the Spare Part Centre in Oarja).