Virtual1 has thrown its support behind Restless Development, an international development charity that aims to empower young people across the world who might otherwise be caught in a spiral of unemployment, poverty, lack of education and poor access to health services.
Restless Development currently works in eight countries in Africa and South Asia, where they listen to the young people of poor communities and train volunteers from these communities in a range of skills that can benefit their own communities.
Using young volunteers to provide the training, who can relate to the community volunteers, they help them to find the answers to the problems facing their communities. There is no right or wrong solution, as each community faces it's own set of problems.
Tom O'Hagan, CEO of Virtual1, said: "As a young company that has faced the challenges of entering a tough market, we understand this approach to a bespoke and non-packaged charity solution. By listening to the individual, and often unique needs of each community, the young charity workers can help the local volunteers to tackle their community problems in a unique way."
The partnership is for an initial three-year period and as part of the arrangement Virtual1 staff will be encouraged to take in various fund raising activities. The first of which has been the £1 challenge, whereby employees survived on just £1 per day for all their food and drink intake, for 5 days. Further activities include a Euro sweepstake, softball challenge, pub quiz with Partners and Carriers.
O'Hagan added: "I have a great team and whenever I've set them a challenge, particularly one that involves charity, they throw themselves into it wholeheartedly. I'm sure they will achieve the £20,000 target we have set for the initial years fundraising target."