The Ministry of Health, together with the Ministry of the Environment and Tortos Bank, initiates the campaign "Laiptynes 2024", which is becoming an annual tradition. State institutions will be invited to compete with each other on the number of steps they walk, and employees are encouraged to choose a way of movement that is beneficial to health, to save energy and to protect the environment.
The Minister of Health Arūnas Dulkys says that we can currently observe extremely great medical progress, which allows us to treat more and more diseases. Unfortunately, progress comes at a cost - medicine is becoming more expensive all over the world, and Lithuania is no exception. Taking this into account, we are moving towards the prevention of diseases and the promotion of a healthy life.
"Increasingly, the responsibility falls on the person himself for lifestyle and disease prevention. Walking, climbing the stairs is a great way to contribute to health improvement that does not require extra effort. And if you can still do it while competing with your colleagues, engagement is guaranteed. I hope this competition will contribute to the formation of positive habits and better physical condition of civil servants", says A. Dulkys.
About 20 people currently work in the centrally managed state offices of Turto banka. employees. According to the calculation of the state company, if all the centrally managed administrative assets of the state were stacked on top of each other, a skyscraper of approximately 969 floors would be created, with more than 17 stairs leading to the top.
"We notice that civil servants mostly move through corridors and stairs between floors, hence the name of the already traditional spring campaign. We have set ourselves the goal of encouraging the employees of state institutions to think about their daily behavior in the office, to pay attention to the possibility of saving energy and the environment", says the acting manager of Turto banka, Ernestas Česokas.
In the Ministry of the Environment, the inscriptions "Will you take the stairs today?" have been hanging in the corridors and on the walls of the elevator for a long time.
"After going up two floors in the elevator, we use as much electricity as we need to charge a mobile phone battery. When we climb the stairs, we save the earth's resources, improve our health, and create less pollution," emphasizes Simonas Gentvilas, Minister of the Environment, contributing to the "Laiptynių 2024" campaign with his team.
The registration of employees for "Laiptynes" starts on April 26, and the competition itself starts on May 2 and will last for a whole month. The steps taken by the employees will be counted in the walk15 app. There will be competition for prizes in two main categories: the highest number of steps taken by an institution's team and the highest average number of steps per participant per team. The clerk with the most steps will be awarded separately.
100 state institutions participated in last year's "Laiptyňa", and together the employees walked more than 1,37 billion. steps or almost 1 million kilometers.
