Red Cross, Coca-Cola HBC deepen partnership to boost corporate volunteering, support youth development in Ukraine

Coca-Cola HBC Ukraine has supplied the Red Cross with nearly 900,000 liters of drinking water and other beverages since 2009. (Coca-Cola HBC)

After more than 10 years of cooperation, Red Cross Society and Coca-Cola HBC Ukraine have agreed to broaden the spectrum of their productive partnership..

On Feb. 1, the two sides signed a new memorandum agreeing to work together to popularize volunteering and support youth development. These directions have been added to responding to emergencies and supporting socially vulnerable groups, which have long been in the focus of this partnership.

“Given the challenges that exist in society today, we decided to expand our cooperation in new areas that would allow us to work even more effectively for the benefit of our communities where we work,” says Andriy Bublyk, the corporate affairs, and sustainability director at Coca-Cola HBC Ukraine.

Coca-Cola HBC, the leader of the beverage market in Ukraine, and Red Cross Society, the country’s biggest humanitarian aid organization, have first joined forces to help those in need in 2009. Three years later, the two signed a memorandum, making the partnership official. On the international level, the cooperation between their parent entities dates as far back as 1917.

Throughout the years, Coca-Cola HBC has supplied the Red Cross with nearly 900,000 liters of drinking water and other beverages, involved its employees in volunteering and provided logistical support for the humanitarian aid delivery throughout Ukraine.

Together Red Cross and Coca-Cola helped the Ukrainian population during the epidemic outbreaks, and supported migrants, people affected by floods, fires and severe frosts.

“This cooperation is aimed at helping those people who find themselves in difficult life circumstances,” says Maksym Dotsenko, director general of the National Committee of the Red Cross Society. “Together with Coca-Cola, we help people with what they need.”

During the flu outbreak in 2009, Coca-Cola HBC helped distribute medicines throughout Ukraine. The following year, the company provided drinking water to people affected by floods in the western regions of the country. When Ukrainians suffered from floods in Odesa Oblast in 2013, the company provided drinking water and delivered it to the affected areas. A year later, Coca-Cola HBC provided logistical assistance in the provision of resources to regional organizations of the Red Cross.

The two partners haven’t stood aside during the Covid-19 pandemic. With the support of Coca-Cola Foundation, more than Hr 8 million was donated to the Red Cross to purchase medical equipment for seven hospitals in different oblasts of Ukraine. Since the beginning of the pandemic, in partnership with the Red Cross, Coca-Cola has supported 15 hospitals in five oblasts of the country and made weekly deliveries of drinking water and beverages to doctors and patients. It also constantly provided goods for the elderly, children from orphanages, and other socially vulnerable Ukrainians.

In 2020, Red Cross and Coca-Cola stepped in to help with the donor blood shortage that was caused by the coronavirus pandemic. The two launched a campaign to support donors and, as a result, more than 15,000 donors received the company’s products.

Now, Coca-Cola and the Red Cross have decided to expand their cooperation to rise to more modern challenges. The two will work together to boost corporate volunteering in Ukraine, as well as support educational projects for youth development.