O2 UK in the community

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Weston Spirit

Following a trial in 2004, O2 UK officially launched its charity partnership with Weston Spirit during 2005/06.

Weston Spirit is co-founded by Simon Weston OBE, whose experiences as a young man and in the Falklands War inspired him to work with young people with limited opportunity.

The partnership features a joint mentoring project - JAM (Just Ask Me), a peer support project that brings together Weston Spirit, O2 employees and mobile phone services to help young people’s personal development in schools.

After training, O2 mentors pass on to sixth-form pupils the skills to become mentors themselves and to support younger pupils in their own school. O2 employees then support the peer mentors through face-to-face meetings and by text messaging.

The scheme was piloted in the last reporting year with more than 90 volunteer employees, working in four O2 locations - Bury, Merseyside, Leeds and Slough.

During the year, Simon Weston staged an O2 roadshow and a further 100 employee mentors were recruited to the scheme. In all nearly 900 youth and O2 mentors are now involved in JAM across seven schools.

We gained recognition from the Qualification and Curriculum Authority during the year, when their research on mentoring in schools brought them in contact with the O2 scheme at Derby School, near Bury.

“The programme on offer at Derby High School is the best example I have seen anywhere of a mainstream setting achieving radical and positive changes...impacting systematically upon...school culture, families and the local community.”

Qualifications and Curriculum Authority Researcher, 2005

During the year, O2 UK launched the O2 Life Line Challenge, a programme of fundraising events to support Weston Spirit. Our goal is to raise £250,000.

The O2 Lifeline Challenge also aims to:

Give our employees opportunities to contribute to a charitable cause in a fun and engaging way.
Tap into our employee Balance programme of health and wellbeing.

In March 2006, we launched the first major Life Line Challenge event - a sponsored ‘Race to Madrid’. Exercise bikes were positioned in all UK offices and teams were invited to compete to cover the furthest distance in one hour. In the end, people taking part covered not only the 5,000 kilometres from Glasgow to Madrid but rode far enough to get halfway back again.

We also held the Life Line Challenge Cup – a five-a-side sponsored football tournament culminating in May in a final at Highbury, Arsenal’s football stadium in May and an exhibition match between the most successful fund raisers and a team of senior management.

In addition, proceeds from our new Pennies from Heaven payroll-based fundraising scheme - which enables employees to donate small change from their monthly gross salaries – are being directed to Weston Spirit. After two months, in March 2006 the scheme had an uptake of 2.1 per cent, or 232 employees.

Child protection

O2 UK continues to support Teach UR Mum to TXT, a national campaign to help parents keep in touch with their children via text messages. Formerly run by Milly’s Fund, it is now managed by the Suzy Lamplugh Trust.

Crime prevention

O2 UK remains actively involved with Her Majesty’s Prison Service in the schools-based programme Prison Me - No Way! Officers and O2 employees visit schools to demonstrate to young people why they should steer clear of crime, simulating prison conditions in schools. We provide tips on mobile phone safety, theft avoidance and how to handle text harassment or bullying.