Youth and education

Group-wide we continued to work in partnership with the International Youth Foundation (IYF), voted by our employees as our main charity for 2003/04.

Known as ‘What Youth Can Do’, our two-year partnership concentrated on youth-related social issues in each of our main markets. Under the umbrella of this IYF partnership, O2 UK supported the Foyer Federation to address homelessness among young people and supported campaigns to help build independence among the young. O2 Germany established an online educational project with the German Children and Youth Foundation and O2 Ireland supported the Communication and Information Technology for Youth (CITY) programme in Ballymun in Dublin, helping vulnerable young people by giving them communication and creative skills through the use of technology.

In early 2005, O2 UK partnered with Weston Spirit as its new charity of choice. Weston Spirit aims to help disadvantaged young people and shares O2 UK’s current commitment to the issues of youth at risk. O2 Germany has continued to support the award-winning project SCHOLA-21, an interactive learning and information network promoting self-confidence and citizenship skills among young people in European schools. Working with a media company and the Institute of Film in Science and Education, O2 Germany also helped produce an interactive learning programme – Polly and Fred – to promote responsible mobile phone use among children as part of the school curriculum.

Employees in Ireland continued to back Children’s Hour, Junior Achievement and its existing partnership with Business in the Community to mentor secondary school children in Limerick and Galway.