EDF Energy
- We believe that social action (such as fundraising, volunteering, or campaigning) can provide young people with great experience, develop their employability skills, and bring positive change to the communities we are part of. We are proud champions of #iwill, supporting the campaign through our work with young people and our own employees.
- We will champion youth social action through the Pod (our national schools programme) and its ‘Helping Hands’ campaign. This will provide free resources to the 20,700+ schools and community groups registered to the programme (including over 60% of UK schools), helping to inspire, enable and promote youth social action in schools and local communities across the country.
- We will launch the ‘Big Energy Efficiency Project’ in 2016 to become a national online resource for schools with above average free school meals. This will help young people to develop and deliver their own energy efficiency campaigns in their schools or local communities.
- We will ensure that social action by young people continues to be valued and recognised during our recruitment processes.
- We will continue to recognise the value of adult volunteering, aiming to have 20% of our employees taking part in volunteering by 2020 – as well as encouraging them to support young people taking part in social action.
- We will commit our employees aged between 16 and 20 to undertake meaningful social action as part of their training and development programmes.
Our ‘Helping Hands’ campaign provides social action resources for young people and teachers through our schools programme, The Pod (www.jointhepod.org). There are free materials to help schools set up, run and promote their own social action projects. There is also a presentation to introduce the idea of social action to students, poster and display board packs, top tips, sign-up sheets, sample surveys, and a guide to taking part. We currently have over 1,000 schools & community groups who are taking part in the campaign who share their achievements on our online Inspiration board
Working with the Transformation Trust, we run the Big Energy Efficiency Project. Since our partnership started, over 1,000 students have taken part. Throughout the project, students run energy efficiency campaigns within their schools, local communities and with family and friends, supported by EDF Energy employees as volunteer mentors.
On our apprentice programme, young employees on Years 1 and 2 of the programme take part in a wide range of social action including charity fundraising and community projects.
Quote from Stephen Tutin – EDF Energy employee and #iwill Ambassador
“As someone who lived in an impoverished rural area, with a mother who earned minimum wage, I have directly seen the benefits, and challenges, of social action. Social action directly secured me a dream, lifelong job. I can point clearly to the parts of my CV which got me that job, and attribute social action to them. Perhaps most importantly, the joy provided by social action helped me through some very tough times in my childhood.”
