DEA supports Stadthaushotel project by donating 8,500 euros

As part of the “Aid instead of candles” donation campaign, DEA’s City Nord employees are supporting yet another social project in Hamburg – the integrative Stadthaushotel Hamburg, which employs people with disabilities.

Last year, DEA’s City Nord Works Council decided to support the “Stadthaushotel Hamburg” project with a donation of 8,500 euros. On Friday, Günther Prien, the Chairman of the Central Works Council of DEA Deutsche Erdoel AG, handed over the symbolic cheque at the hotel.

Kai Wiese, Chairman of the supporting association “Jugend hilft Jugend” (youths helping youths), was really delighted with this unexpected support: “We’re going to use the money to begin with refurbishing the bathrooms. It’s almost enough funding for the first room, and the donation from DEA has now even motivated additional donors.”

From the outside, the Stadthaushotel located at Holstenstrasse 119 looks just like any normal hotel. Only on entering the lobby area does the visitor realise that this is a highly ambitious social flagship project: of the 12 employees who run the hotel’s day-to-day operations, 9 have a disability.

“We aren’t a disabled persons’ hotel, however,” emphasises Ralf-Georg Gronau, the hotel manager. “70 per cent of our guests have no disability. The idea that actually drives us is that people with and without disabilities should live and work together. We counteract the exclusion of people and also offer disadvantaged persons prospects for a positive future,” adds Gronau.

Part of the project is also to be able to survive on the market as an independent, charitable private limited liability company in a cost-efficient manner. “Together, we manage to do this without exacting an undue, excessive toll on the employees. Their attitude in dealing with guests is so warm and full of joy that they don’t perceive this as a burden at all,” says Wiese in describing the working atmosphere. He says that careful training and promotion had resulted in a well-prepared team being created “and, because the employees are suddenly part of everyday life like everyone else, they are highly motivated.”

From our point of view, it is very important for disadvantaged persons in our society to be supported in a targeted manner,” says Günther Prien in explaining DEA’s commitment in this regard. “Our employees believe that the Stadthaushotel has developed a good role model and is making a valuable contribution to the society as a whole. This certainly needs to be supported and promoted,” says DEA's Central Works Council Chairman in emphasising his point.

“Aid instead of candles” has enjoyed a long, time-honoured tradition at DEA. In the “olden days”, the Company produced paraffin for candles at the Grasbrook petroleum plant and gave all employees a package of candles to take home for Christmas. When the Company’s own candle production was abandoned around the turn of the millennium, on the initiative of the Works Council in those days, the idea arose to make the equivalent in value of the “employee candles” available to social institutions each year. DEA’s employees have since dispensed with the need for their candle packages for Christmas and have donated the equivalent in value to social facilities and charities instead.

Further information

Derek Mösche
Press Spokesman
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