Aviva - Street to School Programme
Winner of the East of England Most Innovative New Programme Award, sponsored by Serco
Aviva is the sixth-largest insurance group and the biggest in the UK, with 45,000 employees serving around 53.4 million customers worldwide. In 2010 Aviva launched a new community initiative – ‘Street to School’ - as part of a five-year global commitment to helping vulnerable children at risk on our streets. One of the benefi ts Aviva brings is their size and scale with 6,500 employees in the region
Street to School aims to champion the needs of vulnerable children on the streets, who do not have the luxury of protecting themselves. In the UK alone, it is estimated that 100,000 children run away from home or care every year.
Creating innovative ways of making a difference on a regional level, the programme in the East of England has already seen their UK CEO join 72 colleagues in Norwich for an overnight fundraising ‘sleepout’, employee volunteers have started to deliver an innovative Runaway Awareness and Prevention programme in Norfolk schools and eight employees participated in a cycle ride from Carlisle to Norwich raising over £5,000 for their regional charity partner, Benjamin Foundation.
Volunteers have been trained to deliver an innovative education programme to tackle this issue and schools in the Norwich area have been approached to receive support from the Street to School initiative.
Aviva recognise that their charity partners are the experts in their field; their role is to use their corporate weight to support them, open as many doors as possible and build a robust platform for raising awareness of the hidden issue. Aviva want to help by ‘shining a light’ on lesser known charities, also allowing them to build a deeper level of engagement and involvement with them.
Impact
- 6,837 young people have been reached nationally through awareness and prevention activities
- £9,000 given directly to Benjamin Foundation as a regional partner with an additional £3,680 leveraged through plus matched funding
- 100% of employees who fed back on the volunteering felt that they had gained personal development and increased morale through the experience
