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Dave has represented Wyeth as a business volunteer in the classroom in conjunction with Junior Achievement Ireland (JA).

JA business volunteers deliver structured programmes focusing on bringing the world of business into the classroom. Dave has regularly represented Wyeth as a JA business volunteer since 2005 and has delivered programmes to five primary and secondary schools around Clondalkin.

Dave has also participated in Challenge Science, a Science roadshow organised by JA. The aim of the roadshow is to introduce secondary school students to ‘real-world’ science meeting real scientists and performing experiments.

Dave is a qualified scientist himself and is passionate about sharing his enthusiasm for the discipline. As a business volunteer for the JA programmes, Dave has reached over 300 disadvantaged students. The various programmes have been delivered to educate, entertain and hopefully inspire the students.
Dave has also been a regular volunteer on Give-It-A-Swirl day, the national day of volunteering co-sponsored by Wyeth.

Brendan is involved with many projects that support Abbott’s Corporate Responsibility (CR) strategy, both in the community and in the workplace.

He serves on the Clonmel site’s charitable contributions committee, manages Abbott’s sponsorships of local events, leads Abbott’s schools outreach programmes and also champions health and safety programmes onsite.

On the charitable contributions committee, Brendan helps identify and vet requests from organisations against Abbott’s criteria that they are locally-based and focus on health or education issues and so far has coordinated 30 donations to organisations.

He also manages Abbott’s sponsorships of local events, which helps the local community better understand Abbott’s business and work.

For the schools programmes, Brendan organises school sites visits, coordinated the donation of 15 PCs to local schools, and promotes Abbott’s commitment to science and engineering education. He is also leading the pilot of a new Abbott Family Science Programme that will launch in November.

Brendan’s activities contribute to a positive company profile and create goodwill towards the company in the local community and with local media.

Equally important is that his community and workplace activities position Abbott as an attractive place to work, which has created a great profile with interns, graduates and others in science and engineering, attracting the best and brightest into our company.

Finally, Brendan is living Abbott’s values (Pioneering, Achieving, Caring, and Enduring) through his CR activities, and his actions help to reinforce these values to employees and the community.

Paddy has been involved with Special Olympics Ireland since Eircom became a sponsor 25 years ago.

He has also led staff involvement in other community activities, but in Eircom, he is the internal face of Special Olympics.

Since 1984, Paddy’s constant engagement with the Special Olympics has been instrumental in growing and keeping a large number of Eircom staff involved in supporting the organisation.

Paddy has managed staff involvement in Torch Runs and fundraising campaigns as well as being a volunteer himself for Special Olympics’ All Ireland Games and World Games both here in Ireland in 2003 and abroad.

He also has spent periods of formal secondment with Special Olympics on Eircom’s behalf and has been a constant volunteer for the organisation, giving lots of his own time to helping people with intellectual disabilities participate more fully in life.

Breda was appointed to lead the Janssen Schools’ Liaison Programme in 2007.

This programme is just one of the many Corporate Responsibility (CR) programmes run by the company.

Throughout the programme Janssen employees share their experiences and knowledge with students in an effort to encourage them to continue with their second level education and progress to third level education.

In leading this programme, Breda is responsible for recruiting employees from across the site to participate. She is also responsible for designing the site based workshops and liaising with the local schools in the development and operation of the school based activities.

The Janssen Schools’ Liaison programme is based on a mix of visits to the Janssen facility and employee visits to the local schools. Site visits have enabled the students to gain a visual appreciation for what is involved in the day to day operations and also provides them with an insight into the culture of Janssen.

In addition, through career guidance seminars in the schools, the students meet, engage and learn from employees from various functional areas about the different paths they have chosen in the development of their careers. Workshops on CV preparation and interview techniques followed by mock interviews are also organised to better prepare the students for the world of work.

Shoplifting can be a major issue for retailers but one Boots employee saw the chance to provide alternative and innovative solutions to this challenge.

Through Donal’s work he comes into contact with many young offenders caught shoplifting from Boots stores.

Donal noticed that some of the offenders were in fact re offending and in an effort to break the cycle for these offenders, Donal began to work with the Probation Services arranging for some of the young offenders to do voluntary work within the community as opposed to the standard treatment for shop lifters.

As a result Donal has helped some of these young offenders to break their cycle of crime and give back to the community but he has also reduced the re offending rates of shop lifters at Boots.

In addition, Donal is involved in fundraising for both national organisations and local community projects. He has played the leading role in organising events both internally and externally and setting an example for others to follow. A total of €15,000 last year was raised for the Central Remedial Clinic.

This year he is raising money for the same cause, as well as the Irish Hospice Foundation.