UC RUSAL presented its One Hundred Cool Projects social welfare contest in Yekaterinburg on September 10, 2007. The contest is targeted at supporting the community service initiatives by sixth- to tenth-grade middle and high school students; for the first time this year, some contestants come from Kamensk-Uralskiy, Krasnoturinskiy, Severouralskiy, and Nizhneserginskiy districts of Sverdlovsk Region. UC RUSAL is going to spend 17,000,000 RUR on grants between July 2008 and May 2009.

The One Hundred Cool Projects contest is UC RUSAL’s first grant program that has been held on a yearly basis since 2004. Each year, UC RUSAL awards 100,000 RUR to those seventh- to tenth-grade high school students whose projects win in the competition. In addition, 20,000 RUR are granted to winning projects presented by sixth-grade students. So far, 2,122 applications from five Russian regions have been sent in; first prizes were given to 450 student groups, and 183 groups received promotional prizes.

Preference is given to community service-oriented projects, from helping the elderly to learning the country’s lore. What matters most is that the projects have to provide for a lot of involvement on the part of both the schoolchildren and the local population. The project is unique in that everything, from the very first idea to the implementation stage, is done by children themselves.

UC RUSAL Social Welfare Projects Center was set up in 2004; it aims to develop and support local community projects that can help improve people’s living standards in the areas where the company’s offices and enterprises are located.