A team from Aviva made up of twenty six volunteers from around the country and from the main office in London, built a home in just four days for a disadvantaged family from Cump?na in the region of Constan?a.
A team from Aviva made up of twenty six volunteers from around the country and from the main office in London, built a home in just four days for a disadvantaged family from Cumpăna in the region of Constanţa. This voluntary work sees Aviva working alongside its partners in the non profit-making organisation Habitat for Humanity Romania for the third time.
Similar projects have been carried out by the two partners since 2006 in Cluj and Craiova, where Aviva volunteers from both inside and outside the country built homes for six families in need. Aviva and Habitat for Humanity will once again achieve their shared values in the context of this latest project in Cumpăna, undertaken this week.
The building of the house will be completed on Saturday 13 September this year, and the family will then be able to move into the new house by 1 October 2008 at the latest. The project enables Aviva managers to bring prosperity and peace of mind directly to a family which has never had its own home. They are associating themselves with the Constanţa family benefiting from the new home, as the Iosip Family's story made a deep impression.
Mum, dad and their six year-old daughter live in inadequate conditions in a flat which they share with a brother and his family. The birth of a child is a time of great joy for any family. For the Iosips however, it meant one endless drama. Their daughter suffers from a serious illness: bronchial asthma. Severe asthma attacks have prevented her from leading a normal life and enjoying childhood. Her mother's care and devotion have helped her to get to nursery school this autumn and to make the final preparations for the biggest step, school. Autumn, however, also brought not so good news, as the brother wanted to sell the flat where they are all living and so the Iosip family woke up to find that there was no roof over their heads.
With the support of Aviva and Habitat for Humanity, their drama is coming to an end. "It is important for Aviva to stand alongside partners such as HFH. These projects come to the aid of those who have the greatest need and allow our people to develop themselves in a way which demonstrates our aim and values. Working alongside the people from Habitat and the Iosip Family gives us a sense of fulfilment and helps us to achieve our most important aims, prosperity and peace of mind," in the words of Corina Licea, director of HR, Aviva Romania.
"The help which we are providing to the family from Cumpăna is one of the ways in which Aviva demonstrates how it stands alongside the communities of which it is a part. We are pleased to be associated with the people alongside whom we live and work, and we are particularly pleased to see that we can help to make a direct positive difference to people's lives," says Shah Rouf, CEO Aviva Romania.
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Aviva point of contact for further information:
Cristina Manolache, PR & Event officer
Telephone: 0727 277 163
E-mail: cristina.manolache@aviva.ro
Point of contact at HFH:
Petruţa Păcuraru - HFH Romania communications co-ordinator
Telephone: 0728 97 99 39
E-mail: petruta.pacuraru@habitat.ro
Note for editors:
About the Aviva
Aviva is the oldest insurance group in the world and the largest in the United Kingdom, dating back to 1696.
Today, Aviva has 57,000 employees and 45 million customers in 27 countries across the world.
The group is the market leader for life insurance and pensions in Europe, leading on the majority of the markets in which it operates.
Aviva has revenue from insurance premiums* and investments totalling 54.3 billion euros and manages over 491 billion euros' worth of funds.**
Aviva Group Romania
Aviva Group Romania includes three companies: Aviva Life Insurance, Aviva Management Company for a Private Pension Fund and Certinvest (purchased on 13 September 2007).
Aviva began operating as a provider of life insurance in Romania in 2000 and currently insures over 1,100,000 customers.
On 26 July 2007, Aviva received approval from the Oversight Committee for the System of Private Pensions to set up a company to administer private pensions (Aviva Management Company for a Private Pension Fund SA), and on 25 August received authorisation to administer its mandatory pension fund - Pensia Viva.
About Certinvest
Certinvest currently administers 15 million euros in 4 mutual funds, each of them based around a different type of investment:
Intercapital (a shares fund), Capital Plus (a diversified fund), Orizont (a fixed-income - bonds - fund) and Tezaur (a capital market fund). Certinvest also administers individual investment accounts.
Certinvest has shown throughout the years that it is one of the most dynamic and innovative administrators in the market. The company launched the first commission-free sales fund on the Romanian market (Tezaur) and the first bonds fund in Romania (Orizont).
* according to new sales from 31 December 2007
** at an exchange rate of 1 GBP/ 1.33 EUR
About Habitat for Humanity
Habitat for Humanity builds homes for families in need in Romania via its seven branches across the country: Beiuş, Cluj, Piteşti, Rădăuţi, Craiova, Comăneşti and Cumpăna. More than 1,200 families in need who were living in squalid conditions, with no hope for a better life for their children, now have a safe and healthy home thanks to Habitat's programmes. 2008 is the third year in which the Habitat for Humanity Romania organisation has undertaken rebuilding projects for homes destroyed by flooding.
Aviva is the largest provider of life insurance and long-term savings products in the United Kingdom and one of the leading providers in Europe. In Romania, Aviva began operating as a provider of life insurance in 2000, and in 2007 increased its presence in the Romanian market by establishing the pension company Aviva Management Company for a Private Pension Fund and buying the oldest asset management company in Romania, Certinvest. At the current time, the company has a presence in 20 of the largest towns and cities in the country. Over one million Romanians have put their trust in Aviva, looking for protection, savings and pensions products.