RADIO SHOW ABOUT CSR IN CLASS+ PROJECT

Radio broadcast on Radio Triglav Jesenice on Sunday, March 19, 2023 at 2 p.m.
Recording 16. 3. 2023

Dear listeners, in the next few minutes you will be joined by students of the Radovljica Economic Gymnasium and Secondary School (EGSŠ Radovljica).
In the show, I will talk with students and professors who participate in the CSR in Class project, and then with students of the 4th year of the media major who worked with the Gorenjska Safe House (Varna hiša Gorenjske).
You are welcome to listen.

For the fourth year, EGSŠ has been participating in the European project CSR in CLASS+, which is co-financed by the Erasmus+ program. Professor Irena Papac, who is the leader and who participates in the project?

The CSR and CLASS+ project is led by the Italian Chamber of Commerce for Germany, based in Frankfurt am Main, which connects four development institutions: the Italian Regional Association of Chambers of Commerce of Veneto, the Austrian University of Applied Sciences FJ JOANNEUM from Kapfenberg, the Slovenian Regional Agency of Upper Gorenjska (RAGOR) from Jesenice with four secondary schools; the German economic high school Königin Katarina from Stuttgart, the Italian high school “Marco Fanno” from Conegliano, the Austrian high school IZB HAK from Mürzzuschlag and the Slovenian Economic Gymnasium and Secondary School Radovljica. At the school, 125 students, 8 professors and the principal are involved in the project.

You are preparing for an international good practice case study competition. What are the preparation plans?

With the students of the grammar school of economics, we will study three modules on the CSR online platform CSR in Class – CSR in class+, which we co-created in the project. Each student entrepreneurial team will choose one socially responsible company in Gorenjska.
The company will set a current sustainability challenge and student teams will propose innovative solutions. The committee will select the winning student team in each country. This team will prepare a video solution to the challenge in English.
The international jury will select the winning student entrepreneurial team at the international level. The prize fund amounts to 2,800 euros. On this occasion, we invite local companies to contact us or RAGOR for cooperation.

Liza, you are a 3rd year student. CSR in translation means corporate social responsibility. How does such a company operate and how do you as students connect knowledge with the project?

A socially responsible company strives to operate successfully, profitably, and at the same time be kind to people (employees, customers, suppliers, local communities, the state) and the environment. It takes care of current and future generations.
In the subject of economics, we learn about the market laws, according to which companies operate, which contribute to sustainable development and better living conditions.
In entrepreneurship, we develop socially responsible companies in student teams. During the project day, we learned about the connection between personal and social responsibility and we studied the business case of Domel from Železniki.

Social responsibility depends on personal responsibility. What did you learn?

Our behavior depends on our values, for responsible behavior you need rules, boundaries, good examples; every action has consequences for the community for which you bear responsibility; I think it’s right that you are rewarded for responsible behavior, and that you face consequences for irresponsible behavior; school is a place for learning to behave responsibly; social responsibility teaches you how to accept each other and the differences between us; responsible behavior improves your quality of life, increases performance and social well-being.
In our class, we looked for 7 challenges at school and proposed and presented solutions to the principal. The challenges were presented at the student community meeting, a discussion followed, common solutions were presented to all students at the school.

What did you find out about the company Domel from Železniki during the project day?

This company is a global development supplier of energy efficient electric motors, vacuum motors, blowers and components.
We studied the sustainability report in teams and found that they develop products with lower weight and less material consumption, which reduces the carbon footprint; they use reverse packaging; they pay a lot of attention to the acquisition of young personnel (scholarships, apprenticeships, student work); are a disabled-friendly company; customers have shown their trust for more than 50 years; they have more than 50% of Slovenian permanently high-quality suppliers.
In the second part of the project day, at the invitation of the RAGOR agency, we participated in a round table on social responsibility in Jesenice. We were presented with the cooperation of the agency, the school and the company Domel in the CSR IN CLASS project, the director of IRDO presented the state of corporate social responsibility in Slovenia, and the representatives of the company Domel presented us with some sustainable and innovative solutions and their responsible attitude towards employees. At the end we could ask questions.

With Professor Marja Podjed, you conducted an online survey at the school about the daily behavior of young people in the last fourteen days, such as caring for the preservation of the environment, improving the quality of interpersonal relationships, helping the local community and beyond. Erazem, what did you find out?

Through the survey, we found that the differences in the everyday contribution to social responsibility between high school and elementary school students are small but still noticeable. Both high school and elementary school students help the most in caring for the environment, and we did not notice big differences even in interpersonal relationships.
The biggest differences appear in the contribution to the local community, where high school students were more active than elementary school ones. With this survey, basically we found that students are well aware of the importance of caring for the environment and good interpersonal relationships. We see that even though we are young, we can contribute to social responsibility in many areas, we just must actively approach solving the challenges.

Principal Ksenija Lipovšček is also with us, and she will tell us about her experience of the project.

Why do you think such projects are important?

Involvement in projects is an opportunity for the school to make changes to the school curriculum. It is about raising awareness of the project’s goals and how we will realize them at all levels.
We started the task with the 3rd grade of the economics high school, but we will spread the ideas to all others, especially economics classes, and we also want the students in these classes, to understand, get to know the concept, and act in accordance with this idea.
At this point, I would like to emphasize that it is not only a concept idea, but the way we operate. We want to achieve changes in natural values above all, and this is a long-term process. It is about the responsible behavior of each of us in different roles, both in private life and in the professional field.
The project will also be presented at the 24th national competition for high school students in economics, business and financial mathematics, which will be held at our school on Friday, April 14th 2023. All accompanying activities will take place in the spirit of sustainable development and responsible behavior.

Thank you very much for all the replies. We wish for you a successful study of socially responsible companies and innovative sustainable solutions to challenges.