My colleagues and I met on 18 October 2024 near the ‘Praterstern’ rapid transit station to go on an excursion to the Madame Tussauds Museum in Vienna's Prater with the partially assisted residents of Lebenshilfe Wien. We were 11 employees in total and accompanied 16 people, including 13 people with disabilities and 3 carers. As we had already travelled with this group last year as part of our ESG event, we decided to have fun again this year and meet up again. We contacted Maria Hörlesberger from LH Vienna and asked her to put together a group to accompany us. The invitation was well received and everyone was thrilled to take part in this excursion.

It is always a pleasure to see how happy people are to be able to do something together with us. Many of them cannot afford such activities and are therefore particularly grateful when they are invited. The joy and gratitude of the disabled people remind us of children who openly show their emotions. The visit to the museum was a sensational success and thousands of photos were taken. Each of our guests found one or more celebrities they wanted to be photographed with, be it Hansi Hinterseer, Richard Lugner, Arnold Schwarzenegger or Empress Sissy. Our guests were excited that they recognised the celebrities and that the wax dolls were so faithfully reproduced.

These people show us how important it is to show joy and live in the here and now. This skill is difficult for many people to learn and is unfortunately often lost in professional life. It is also impressive to see how our colleagues interact with people with disabilities, as they often show surprising sides of themselves that we only recognise from everyday office life.

After visiting the museum, we enjoyed dinner together at the ‘Zum Kaiser’ restaurant. Almost all of the Lebenshilfe clients asked us if we would see each other again next year. This shows us that we gave people great pleasure with this joint excursion, which gives us a good feeling. We, the employees of ERSTE Group, also really enjoyed the outing and had a good time.

Report from lebenshilfe.wien ▶ A day full of fun: A trip to Madame Tussauds with Erste Group
 

Author: Beate Pöcksteiner