2020
POSITIVE IMPACT
Positive impact has been chosen as the theme of our Annual Report this year.
We set up our CSR committee in 2014 to make a positive difference within our communities. Our success as a company enables us to deliver on our CSR strategy by making a meaningful contribution to create a sustainable impact.
Our CSR committee is made up of passionate volunteers from across our Dublin and global offices and through the generous support from our shareholder, we have funded €1.5 million in projects involving children and education since 2014.
We do this not only because our employees want to work for a company that has a sense of purpose at its core, but also because it is the right thing to do.
In 2019 alone, we contributed almost €500,000 to 18 projects in Ireland, the US, Malawi and Singapore. Employee volunteering is a major element of our CSR activity and we estimate that our staff have committed 2,954 hours of their time during 2019.
We support a core legacy project, BYC, alongside four foundation projects: SUAS; The Trinity Centre for People with Intellectual Disabilities (TCPID); LauraLynn Children’s Hospice; and Open Arms Malawi.
Belvedere Youth Club
Our location in Dublin’s IFSC places us beside one of the most socially deprived areas in Ireland. During 2019 we decided that we wanted to create a lasting legacy in that area and worked with Community Foundation for Ireland to select a partner to support it. We invited applications from local charitable organisations and selected the Belvedere Youth Club (BYC) for our legacy CSR project.
BYC provides comprehensive youth services to disadvantaged children and teens in the North East Inner City of Dublin. These services include homework facilities, a recreational space for sport, art and drama, and a hot meal for up to 90 children and teenagers daily.
We are providing €760,000 over a three-year period to undertake a transformational project which will involve the creation of a hub for restorative practice in Ireland as well as the refurbishment of the BYC premises.
Restorative practice is a social science to improve and repair relationships between people and their communities. The purpose is to build healthy communities, increase social capital, decrease crime and antisocial behaviour, repair harm and restore relationships. It ties together research in a variety of social science fields, including education, psychology, social work, criminology, sociology, organisational development and leadership.
We are supporting BYC with finance and volunteers and our IT team have been devoting time to work on new platforms for the Club.
Open Arms Malawi
Open Arms Malawi cares for vulnerable children so they can grow up healthy and supported in a loving family environment. Since 2016, ten of our employees have travelled to Malawi every year to assist with the construction of a new project, with the support of the company and their colleagues. Unfortunately, that has not been possible in 2020 due to the Covid-19 pandemic.
LauraLynn
Our relationship with LauraLynn, which delivers palliative care to children and family support services, includes ongoing staff participation in fundraising and volunteering activities and financial support for new projects including a new End of Life Suite. Our employees actively volunteer with LauraLynn on an ongoing basis.
TCPID
TCPID aims to promote the inclusion of people with intellectual disabilities in education and society. We support the centre in its mission to enable people with intellectual disabilities achieve their potential. We greatly value this partnership and have had two graduates join us for work experience since our partnership commenced.
SUAS
SUAS has helped over 3,300 children from the most disadvantaged communities in Ireland to improve their literacy skills and our volunteers have helped achieve some great results by participating in a paired reading project with 90 local children during our partnership.
We believe that our sense of purpose will become greater as we continue to see the benefits of giving as a company.
Covid-19
The Covid-19 crisis has been an important time for companies to assess their societal impact. We have been aware of the financial pressure that charities have been experiencing over the past number of weeks and months and have looked at ways to help.
Early on in the crisis, our CSR team set up a fund to support some of the services that were most in need. These included Women’s Aid and the HSE in Ireland, which received support in the form of much-needed PPE. In addition, we set up a matched funding initiative, which saw employees donate to charities of their choice around the world and with the company matching this with a donation of three times that amount.
The future
We believe that our sense of purpose will become greater as we continue to see the benefits of giving as a company. It gives us the opportunity to put our better side in play. Our purpose is not just about achieving the type of success which can be measured on a spreadsheet, we must make a positive impact on society as well.
We are committed to building long term sustainable programmes for the benefits of our charity partners, our employees and our shareholders. We recognise that what we achieve now can and must have a lasting impact to the benefit of many for the longer term.
Denis Hogan
SVP and Regional Manager Airline Marketing, Chair CSR Committee