Greater Manchester

First donate £1000 to fund educational projects

First help a Manchester charity to raise £8,000 for children in the developing world

First are proud to have donated £1,000 to Moss Side based charity ReachOut, which ran a StudyAid scheme to fund educational projects in Angola, Cameroon, Ecuador and Haiti.

The scheme involved local businesses sponsoring £1 for every hour a child spent studying over one month, and encouraged hundreds of young people to visit participating schools, libraries and youth clubs in their spare time.

Brendan Donelon, Project Manager at ReachOut, is pleased with the success of the project, the first of its kind in the UK. He said: "StudyAid is an annual international scheme that helps a lot of disadvantaged children. By launching it in Manchester we were able to help youngsters in the area appreciate their own education and work together to benefit others across the world.

"We are grateful that local businesses like First got involved and helped to make the project such a success. Overall we managed to raise £8,000 and hope to do even better next year.'

ReachOut offers learning support to youngsters aged nine to 18 years who come from disadvantaged backgrounds. Its mentors, all volunteers, visit schools and youth centres every week where they work one to one and in groups.

Claire Johnson, Commercial Manager for First, said: "We continually look at ways to support local causes that make a difference to the communities. In the case of ReachOut, we were able to help youngsters both here and abroad and support a charity that is an important resource for many young people in the area."