Carphone Warehouse 2016 Annual Report Download - page 34

Dixons Carphone plc Annual Report and Accounts 2015/16
Strategic Report
Corporate Responsibility
32
Charity partnership
We set out to further consolidate our Corporate Responsibility
programme, as well as our local and in-store charitable
activities through the support of a single charity partner.
In December 2015, the long-term charity partner of Carphone
Warehouse, Get Connected, merged with YouthNet to create
the UK’s largest support service for young people, The Mix
(registered charity number 1048995). Just as Dixons Carphone
matches customers with the best equipment and services for
their needs, The Mix supports the physical and mental
wellbeing of young people under 25 across the UK, whatever
their issue, through the technology of their choice.
Our continuing support of The Mix played a significant role in
their merger, propelling us into a new era of the partnership,
helping to drive the charity forward so they can recruit
hundreds of new volunteers and provide thousands more
hours of support to young people through new channels.
In 2015/16 we gave a total of £447,390 to this free, confidential
support service, which offers young people help 24/7, 365
days a year through phone, text, web, social media and
counselling. The Mix connects them with experts and peers
to talk about everything including homelessness, finding a job,
money management, mental wellbeing, relationship issues and
drug use.
Royal support
In April 2016 we were delighted to announce Princes William,
Harry and The Duchess of Cornwall chose to support our
charity partner The Mix as part of their ‘Heads Together’
campaign, which aims to raise awareness of, and change,
the negative perception of mental health conditions in the
UK. In 2016/17 we will work with the Royal Foundation to
promote this high profile campaign through in-store
activities and employee participation in events such
as the London Marathon.
As well as providing gifts-in-kind, office and helpline
accommodation for The Mix, our support has directly funded
investment in a new volunteering programme called Digital
Connectors, enabling the charity to recruit and train volunteers
remotely, substantially increasing the hours of support they are
able to give, opening up employee volunteering opportunities
as well as flexible opportunities for young people looking to
develop skills. In 2015/16, The Mix trained 99 Digital
Connectors volunteers, who have already supported over
3,000 young people across the UK. The Mix will continue to
build on this success, expand their volunteer programme and
help more young people in need.
Our support has also enabled the development and launch of
an online counselling service, which has to date provided over
1,000 hours of counselling to under 25s. Feedback about how
the counselling has helped has been overwhelmingly positive.
Dixons Carphone Race to the Stones
Our sponsorship of the UK’s biggest ultra-marathon received
a European Sponsorship Award for Employee Engagement
and won Best Endurance Event at The UK Running Awards.
On 11-12 July 2015 over 2,000 public participants ran,
trekked or walked 100km along the ancient Ridgeway. Over
230 employees signed up to get fit, raising over £69,000 for
Get Connected (now The Mix) and promoting the work of our
charity partner. Overall, this event has raised over £500,000
for a variety of good causes. We continue our investment in
Race to the Stones in 2016.
Techknowledge for Schools (T4S)
We continued our support for this registered charity, investing a
total of £207,000 to help fund the largest independent research
programme in the world into the use of one-to-one technology
to transform education. In February 2016, the decision was
made to close T4S after trustees became confident that major
issues around implementing technology into schools had been
defined, the real benefits had been identified and valuable
insights into successfully deploying technology to transform
learning outcomes were gained and made publically available.
During the two years the charity was in operation it worked with
over 45 UK secondary schools using one-to-one devices,
carried out comprehensive in-depth qualitative research and
analysis, recorded 440 online interviews with teachers, hosted
40 focus groups with students, parents and teachers, filmed 60
hours of ethnographic observation, and interviewed over 12,000
pupils online and 40 teacher leaders face to face. Our body of
research has been made available to relevant stakeholders
including the House of Lords Digital Skills Select Committee to
support the case for better technology provision for all schools
across the country.
Project BluPoint
We are proud to be at the forefront of tech innovation,
identifying technology for good and being a catalyst for
transformative change. In May 2016 we invested in a project
to progress findings from our work with Techknowledge for
Schools, which highlighted that schools need reliable, quick
and affordable access to trusted educational content.
BluPoint is the name given to a solar-powered device which
transmits digital content to areas without reliable or
affordable connectivity, on any handset using Wi-Fi, FM
Radio or Bluetooth. Between July and October 2016, ten
employees will visit Durban in South Africa, where we operate
a contact centre, to trial and evaluate BluPoint in resource-
starved schools thereby empowering local communities with
free internet access to educational tools and services. Project
BluPoint is being run in collaboration with its inventor,
Dr Mike Santer, Technology Adviser to the Bill Gates
Foundation, and his team.
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