Vodafone Ireland Foundation (VIF) today announced the16 charities to receive funding through its 2007 grant application round. The selected charities will share in a total fund of €812,000 to continue their essential work through their new and exciting projects that reiterate the Foundations focus of helping improve the lives of children, young people and families who face adversity in Ireland.

Within the group of 16 charities, there is wide range of organisations of varying sizes making a significant impact already. Some examples of the programmes being funded are:

OPEN (One Parent Exchange Network), one of the key charities supported by the Vodafone Ireland Foundation is an organisation dedicated to offering support to lone parents throughout the country. The Foundation is supporting them to roll out a successful internationally-recognised parenting programme called ‘Strengthening families, Strengthening Communities’ to eight areas across Ireland. This community based programme which will benefit 440 parents and over 600 children aims to help families develop good parenting skills, through building positive parent-child relationships, life skills, self esteem, self discipline and educating parents how to access community resources.

The Peter McVerry Trust is committed to reducing the effects of homelessness, drug misuse and social disadvantage. They have receive funding from the Foundation to assist 120 youths avail of their Lantern Residential Community Detox programme, which provides 25% of detox beds in Dublin. This unique model is successfully operated in other European countries and encompasses the therapeutic aspects of horticulture into the drug rehabilitation programme for youths.

Some smaller benefiting organisations such as Meath based charity ‘Third Age Foundation’ will receive funding to support their ‘Failte Isteach’ programme, a homework club which utilises the skills and experience of older people in the community to assist New Irish adults and children with the English language and cultural transition.

The funding was announced in May 2007, and Vodafone Ireland Foundation was inundated with applications for available grants. Charities were asked to outline their aims, full details of their specific projects, the impact it would have on their target group and how the project will be evaluated and measured. The recipients were selected following a detailed assessment which looked at how the organisations fulfilled the Foundations current funding criteria, the impact and sustainability of the project, and the potential outcome and longer-term benefit to the Community and society into consideration.

Commenting on the announcement Jan Mottram, Chairperson of the Vodafone Ireland Foundation said; "We are delighted to be supporting some of Ireland's leading charities in their vital work to improve the lives of children, youths and their families facing adversity here in Ireland. Selecting these 16 charities from the huge number of applications we received was not an easy task. This is why we have developed such a detailed selection process; we really want to ensure that the projects that we support have clear and tangible objectives towards making a significant and lasting impact on Irish society. We are really looking forward to working with our new partners".

"We are also delighted to see our first four World of Difference winners settling into, and enjoying their new roles with their chosen charities. Our second World of Difference programme will search across the nation for more passionate individuals to work for a charity of their choice for a year, paid for by the Foundation. We will be launching this opportunity for people to become involved in the programme early in 2008."

For further information please contact:

Anne-Marie Moran, 087 9310200 Vodafone Ireland Foundation
or
Paula Mullin / Kim Lombard, Drury Communications
pmullin@drurycom.com / klombard@drurycom.com
Tel: 01 2605000

Notes:
Vodafone has a unique family of 23 Foundations and social investment programmes around the world, which are part of Vodafone’s commitment to be a responsible global citizen and member of society.

Vodafone Ireland Foundation (VIF) was established in 2003 to help support Irish charities to respond to the needs in Irish society. To date the Foundation has committed over €4.5m in funding to the sector. Following a strategic review in 2006, the Foundation looked to increase the positive impact of its funding by prioritising its efforts on supporting programmes to help improve the lives of children, young people and families facing adversity in Ireland.

Vodafone Ireland Foundation also launched its “World of Difference” programme in 2007, an innovative new programme offering up to four Irish residents who demonstrated the necessary passion, skills and commitment to make a real difference the chance to spend a year working for their chosen registered Irish charity while having their salaries and expenses paid for by the Foundation.

See below all other charities to receive funding:

Nationwide
Arthritis Ireland - funding to provide a web based forum of information and support to 1,000 children under 16 and their families who have arthritis
DEBRA Ireland - to develop and run information and support programmes for youths and their families with Epidermolysis Bullosa
OPEN – funding the roll out of the ‘Strengthening Families, Strengthening Communities’ parenting programme.
The Wheel - To fund a capacity building web project ‘Get Connected’ which will give info and advice to the community and voluntary organisations, on using Information Technology
Social Entrepreneurs Ireland - funding to train and mentor winners of the Social Entrepreneurs Awards Programme. This programme offers assistance to social entrepreneurs who wish to start up new projects to tackle social problems in Ireland.

Dublin
Don Bosco Teenage Care (DBTC) - train staff at DBTC in a new Therapeutic Care for homeless youths
Peter McVerry Trust - funding of a Residential Detox programme for young people
Pieta House - Establish a first of its kind Out Of Hours drop -in Community Service in Clondalkin to aid the Prevention of Self Harm & suicide to young adults.
Sophia Housing Association - fund a Group Work Programme for families in transitional housing

Clare
Clare Haven Services - Winter Art Therapy project for children residing in Clare Haven Refuge which will allow them to engage in creative group work activities

Cork
Foróige – funding for the expansion of the Big Brother/Big Sister mentoring programme to Cork

Kerry
MFG Comhar Dhúibhne - Delivery of a local Youth development Social Inclusion Programme through a new Youth cafe in the Dingle Penninsula

Limerick
Northside Learning Hub - to fund equipment for a multimedia centre which will run Computer, Music & Media courses for disadvantaged youths.
The Blue Box Creative Learning Centre- Southhill Project which will provide therapist to attend a primary schools to work with children and parents who are victims of poverty, depression, domestic violence

Leitrim
Foróige - fund an intensive Family Support Programme for the marginalised families of children engaged in the Neighbourhood Youth Project

Meath
Third Age Foundation - to fund ‘Failte Isteach’ programme, a homework club run by older volunteers that assists Non national adults and children with the English language and cultural transition.