UrBC, Magnitogorsk, October 16, 2018. Metallurg Charity Foundation, for which Magnitogorsk Iron & Steel Works (MMK) is the primary sponsor and benefactor, turned thirty this month, MMK’s press service reports.

‘The foundation got set up in 1988, when the drastic economic changes and their consequences hit the country’s most socially vulnerable strata (retirees and people with disabilities) the hardest. The government was unable to take care of most of its citizens, and MMK management started to look into alternative ways to offer its former employees a social safety net,’ the press service says.

In the fall of 1988, MMK Director Ivan Romazan signed a decree to set up a social welfare unit within the plant’s housing and utilities department in order to help the plant’s elderly and family-less former employees. From then on, a stable communication channel got established between MMK and its long-service employees, who got provided with severance pay, access to outpatient healthcare, housing repair subsidies, and other benefits. Two years later, the social welfare unit transformed into Miloserdiye Charity Foundation set up by MMK. Valentin Vladimirtsev was elected the organization’s Chair. The funds stemmed from the voluntary donations of MMK itself and other enterprises and organizations.

Today, Metallurg supports 62,000 people living in the Southern Urals: old-age pensioners, people with disabilities, expectant mothers, families with three or more children, and children. Magnitogorsk Iron & Steel Works has remained the foundation’s largest donor throughout the years.