• Up to 40 children of the company’s employees visited the power plant to learn more about their parent’s occupation and workplace
• The activities in ContourGlobal Maritsa East 3 TPP were part of an initiative of the UN Global Compact Network in Bulgaria carried out in a total of 12 companies in the country
ContourGlobal Maritsa East 3 TPP welcomed 38 children of its employees on the Day of the National Enlighteners in order to familiarize them with their parents’ occupation and workplace. The event was part of the Proud with My Parents’ Work project, organized by the UN Global Compact Network in Bulgaria at the initiative of ContourGlobal Maritsa East 3, TechnoLogica and Overgas. A total of 12 member companies held similar events at their sites.
“The idea, around which we and the other members of the UN Global Compact in Bulgaria united, is the desire to show our children that work is a value and that all jobs are necessary and useful,” said Garry Levesley, CEO of ContourGlobal Maritsa East 3. “Showing them how their parents’ workdayat ContourGlobal Maritsa East 3 TPP passes, we would like to stir up their interest in a number of directions – what their parents are doing during the time they are not together, what the children would like to do when they grow up, and how a product, as important to our everyday life as electricity, is produced.”
Thirty-eight children aged between 5 and 14, accompanied by 31 parents, visited the power plant to see where mom and dad work. The festive day included a rich programme, which started with a discussion dedicated to electricity generationand how in the case of ContourGobal it is done in a safe, reliable and environmentally compliant way. During the conversations video interviews with some of the employees’ children were screened, in which they share what they know about their parents’ job. Later the kids told what had impressed them during the visit of the power plant and what kind of new things they had learned about the work of their parents. After that the group headed for a tour of some of the facilities in order to see their real scale. The engaging games thought up by the organizers turned out to be the culmination of the event – the children had real fun assembling a puzzle imitating power plant repairs and colouring pictures of the TPP and of mom and dad’s colleagues.
The aim of the Proud with My Parents’ Work project is to help children realize that everyone’s work is important and has to be respected, as well as to provide them with early professional orientation, using their curiosity and ability to get impressed. The project is valuable to the company itself, too, because it helps develop its internal relations, and enrich the relations with its employees’ families. The methodology and the idea of the project have been developed by the the UN Global Compact Network in Bulgaria in collaboration with the Bulgarian Charities Aid Foundation.