Youth and education

Our community theme last year was youth and education in areas of social disadvantage and we continued to work with the Irish Youth Foundation to help young people in need.

O2 Ireland sponsored the Communications and Information Technology for Youth (CITY) project in Dublin's Ballymun area. The programme provides supervised computer access for 10-19 year olds, offering email, internet surfing, homework and school projects. Our involvement provided extra PCs, an IT trainer and more access to IT training for a greater number of young people.

As we shift our focus to youth and disability, our CITY involvement will taper off. But we still continue to support Children's Hour, an innovative national fundraising initiative, which allows employees to donate one hour of their salary to support educational and social projects for disadvantaged youth. Up to May of this year, the nationwide scheme had raised a total of €181,635.53, of which O2 employees donated €3,244.

Through our membership of the Business in the Community Schools' Business Partnership, we increased our links with the Salesians Secondary School in Limerick and the Galway Community College, providing mentoring and work experience opportunities.

Many of our employees have also volunteered their time to Junior Achievement, a non-profit organisation that aims to build a bridge between the classroom and the workplace. Since our involvement in 2003, our employees have donated 260 hours of their time teaching 1,300 children in the Dublin area.

In Limerick, where our customer care centre is based, we have maintained our support for the Chernobyl Children's Project, a give-as-you-earn scheme enabled through our Limerick payroll.