Petrom Filling Stations support approximately 2,000 pupils with tablets and access to internet, within the campaign “The road to online school”

 

OMV Petrom, the largest energy company in Southeastern Europe, has launched the campaign “The road to online school”. The company supports with EUR 90,000 the purchase of tablets and internet subscriptions in order to facilitate access to attend online school hours for approximately 2,000 pupils from disadvantaged backgrounds. The campaign is carried out with the support of Petrom filling stations, Mastercard and Narada, an NGO whose mission is to support education.
 

“The education cannot be put on hold and a sustained effort is needed at the level of the entire society to take the online school where it does not exist. The pandemic has strongly affected the educational process, but it is up to all of us to come up with solutions to support the pupils to continue to have access to quality education and the teachers to be able to carry out their courses”, said Radu Căprău, member of OMV Petrom Executive Board, responsible for Downstream Oil.
 

"At the beginning of the pandemic, hundreds of thousands of Romanian children were in the impossibility to attend online school. It is simply impossible for them. They don’t have tablets, internet access, and some of them don’t even have electricity. When OMV Petrom came to us and to our mission, not only they had the intention but also the plan on how they wanted to reconnect to education, together, thousands of children, even from the first weeks of our partnership. Even if the schools are closed, the education must continue and it is such partners that make things possible again for children in vulnerable communities.", said Andra Munteanu, co-founder Narada.
 

By the end of this school year, Narada aims that 10,000 children from disadvantaged backgrounds to have access to digital education. In only two months after the schools closed during the state of emergency, Narada managed to connect to education through technology 1,000 children from vulnerable villages and communities. So far, over 50 Narada volunteers reached 8 counties and 18 different communities and provided devices and internet to children with no access to technology, aiming that, by the end of the year and with the help of partners, the number of those who will be helped to increase ten times. Therefore, Petrom’s support, which will cover the needs of 2,000 children from disadvantaged backgrounds, comes in addition to the crowdfunding efforts for projects initiated by teachers and submitted on Narada.ro. 
 

The campaign “The road to online school”, initiated by OMV Petrom through Petrom filling stations, is based on raising funds to facilitate the pupils’ access to digital education. The parents joining the campaign can learn from the website www.drumulsprescoala.ro, with the help of a computer, what is the monthly distance that a child used to go to school, before the pandemic. In this way, the money saved on transport, since the online school has started, can be donated via www.drumulsprescoala.ro to support the pupils with no access to technology or internet or who have difficulties to attend the online courses. 
 

According to public data, only 32% of the Romanian pupils have access, at home, to internet or to digital devices needed for online school. 

 

About OMV Petrom 
 

OMV Petrom is the largest integrated energy company in South-Eastern Europe, with an annual Group hydrocarbon production of 55.4 million boe in 2019. The Group has a refining capacity of 4.5 million tons annually and operates an 860 MW high efficiency power plant. The Group is present on the oil products retail market in Romania and neighboring countries through 798 filling stations, at the end of September 2020, under two brands – OMV and Petrom.

 

OMV Aktiengesellschaft, one of the largest listed industrial companies in Austria, holds a 51.011% stake in OMV Petrom. The Romanian State, through the Ministry of Economy, Energy and Business Environment, holds 20.639% of OMV Petrom shares, Fondul Proprietatea holds 6.997%, and 21.353% is the free float on the Bucharest Stock Exchange and the London Stock Exchange.
 

OMV Petrom is the largest contributor to the state budget, with contributions of 30.4 billion euro in taxes and dividends paid between 2005 and 2019.

 

Since 2007, OMV Petrom has included corporate responsibility principles into its business strategy. Between 2007-2019, the company has allocated approximately 66 million euro to develop communities in Romania, focusing on environmental protection, education, health and local development.
 

On July 29th, 2020, OMV Petrom announced its support for the recommendations issued by the Task Force on Climate-related Financial Disclosures (TCFD) regarding risks and opportunities on climate change.

 

NARADA: We take education to the 21st century 
 

Narada is a community of entrepreneurs, managers, people of action whose purpose is to provide efficient and fast solutions to modernize education. Narada is an organization born under the umbrella of the Romanian Business Leaders Foundation (rbls.ro) with the aim of feeding innovation in education from the ground roots.

 

NARADA connects the projects of teachers in the public system with the business environment and vice versa. In other words, # 1 it encourages and helps teachers to create projects that innovate in classrooms and / or solve students 'problems, # 2 it brings teachers' projects to the attention of the business environment and makes every effort to fund them. # 3 Finally, it oversees their implementation, measures results and multiplies the things that worked. A single educational project will not change education, but the strength of thousands of such projects, WILL.