Communities: O2 Germany
- Support for youth
- Activities for the community
- Responsibility for children and young people
- Charitable activities in the community
- Health and wellbeing
- O2 Germany is a member of the UPJ
Support for youth
For three years we have been running our most important education project, Schola-21, in conjunction with the German Children and Youth Foundation (GCYF).
Schola-21 aims to train young people to develop their media skills through practical project work. This initiative is especially important in today's communication-led society. O2 employees act as mentors in Schola-21 school projects.
Schola-21 is an interactive, internet-based education project in which pupils from all over the world collaborate. Last year more than 1,000 schools in Germany, Sweden, Italy and Great Britain took part in this multi-award-winning project.
In future we want to recruit even more employees as mentors or experts for Schola-21. We are also planning to enter into long-term partnerships with schools near our offices. Initially, schools in the Nymphenburg-area in Munich will be involved in Schola-21 after the official school year end in July 2006. The initial activity in this programme will be a project on: Values at school, in business and in the (global) community, and our Managing Director for Corporate Affairs & Communications, Dietrich Beese will act as a mentor on the subject.
Together with the GCYF and Schola-21, we also sponsored the nationwide campaign marking the Einstein Year in German schools. The initiative concluded with a three-day conference in Munich attended by 250 pupils with a particular interest in physics. We also supported the pupils’ conference with a field trip to the corporate headquarters of O2 Germany.
Activities for the community
Donations from O2 Germany as part of its commitment to the community 2005/06: €1,002,782.
We believe education is vital, and that children and young people in particular should be well supported by society to achieve their full potential. As a young company, O2 Germany sees it as its duty to focus our social commitment on this area and open up new opportunities.
For many years we have made it our mission to specifically address children and young people through our community projects and initiatives. Our involvement ranges from boosting young people’s media skills to physical education programmes in kindergartens. We also support social projects through the coaching of volunteers.
Responsibility for children and young people
In 2004, we supported the production of the mobile phone course ''Polly and Fred' that teaches 8-12-year-olds how to use a mobile phone safely and responsibly.
The CD-ROM-based course had been developed by the Institute for Film and Image in Science and Education (FWU) and outermedia, a Berlin-based agency on Internet communication.
Despite the ongoing public debate about young people's use of mobile technology, the mobile-phone course was hardly used by schools. In 2005 Hessen was the only Federal State to obtain the necessary state license for school-use. Consequently, during the financial year 2005/06 O2 Germany decided to purchase licenses for Bavaria, North Rhine-Westphalia, Bremen and Saxony-Anhalt in order to increase the take up of the mobile-phone course in schools.
Charitable activities in the community
In 2006 O2 Germany began supporting the 'startsocial' recognition scheme, which encourages the generation of outstanding social projects and ideas.
Although many volunteers have good ideas, they often face practical obstacles when they want to get involved in community work either by themselves, with friends, in clubs, schools or parishes.
With the slogan 'Help for helpers', startsocial actively encourages the transfer of knowledge between businesses and social enterprises. The 100 best projects receive coaching from experts who mostly represent companies involved in startsocial. Many O2 employees took part in the project last year as jurors, coaches or experts.
The benefits of startsocial are that social initiatives get the benefit of individual advice and networks emerge between volunteers and the businesses. Conversely, the employees representing the business community gain valuable experience and have the opportunity to look beyond the four walls of their everyday work.
The initiative is under the patronage of German Chancellor Angela Merkel, and the Federal Minister for the Family Ursula von der Leyen presented a special prize at the end of the 2005 competition to the most outstanding and beneficial project.
Health and wellbeing
To counteract the widespread lack of exercise by German children at an early age, we are supporting the 'Getting kids moving' project by the German Olympic Association (GOA), which encourages exercise and sports among children in kindergartens.
The project – to which we contribute €20,000 annually – is set to run for three years. In addition, every kindergarten that offers a range of exercise activities together with the GOA receives an additional €5,000 a year for the three-year term. O2's support for the project is consistent with the corporate strategy, which advocates values such as fair play, team spirit, performance and mobility. Ten kindergartens supported by O2 are currently taking part in the programme.
O2 Germany is a member of the UPJ
In 2005/2006 O2 Germany became a member of the national initiative "Business in Partnership with Youth" (UPJ).
As part of this, we actively encourage the discussion of corporate citizenship in Germany. The UPJ is a nationwide network of intermediary organisations, companies and figures from the business world. As a programme partner of the European business network CSR Europe, the corporate citizenship network initiates long-term collaborations between businesses, social organisations and public administrations with the aim of improving young people’s future opportunities and helping to stimulate sustained social development.
