Page 10 - Book about Friendship and Future.Stories of Volunteers.

Raisa Polyakova

General Manager of KFC Russia & CIS

Volunteering is important to me, as a person and a leader.
I feel personal responsibility for developing volunteering and
social projects in our huge company. To be with the guys and
to help them is important personally to me. We all constitute
a company with a big heart, and I have been witnessing that year
after year.
Founding the KFC Corporate Charity Fund “Opening Hori-
zons” in 2015, we have pursued two major goals. First – to help
teenagers in orphanages to choose a profession and successfully
start the adult life. Second – to give our employees the oppor-
tunity to make their personal contribution to the initiatives that
are useful for the society. Recently I have witnessed that we have
been really successfully achieving these goals.
This year I have participated in an event of the charity pro-
gram “Generation Choice” in the Baryshev Centre of Aid for Kids
in Novosibirsk region. We were speaking about the specifics of
our profession, and the kids were contemplating what they saw
positive in that job and what did not seem attractive to them.
I was astonished that the kids were treating our stories very se-
riously. They clearly formulate their opinion, and have their ideas
of the competencies of the future.
The program develops not only the kids’ skills but our em-
ployees’ skills as well – and this is highly visible if we look at the
volunteers. I was impressed with what ease they behave. Some
of them started working in a restaurant as a regular member of
staff, and now have become real leaders. Due to this trip, I got
convinced once again that volunteering is one of the most signif-
icant components of our company corporate culture. a positive
work environment is established where the staff is made of good
and sympathetic people, ready to help.
And I would also like to voice my gratitude to our Board of
Directors. We have worked for many years and no one has ever
asked a question why we need that, the only questions were
about how we can do more, better and how we can be of use.
Through fire and water – with such leaders!