At Gatwick and in the UK regions we have a small team of community champions who coordinate and support local activity. Their role is to work with members of their local communities to identify projects that fit within the corporate priorities.
Support for Community Projects in the Gatwick Airport area was launched in 2004. Since then, British Airways has supported a range of community education programmes in and around the Gatwick airport area.
Lancing House is a local respite care centre in
Crawley offering residential opportunity for children with severe
disabilities.
Across the Ages is a family fun day held at Gatwick in the summer. It is an opportunity for people of all ages from the Gatwick and Crawley community to come together.
Many other projects in the Gatwick area have also benefited from assistance with their community work.
British Airways supports projects in and around our Manchester hub.
British Airways Community Relations has supported a number of projects in and around the Manchester area in the past year. These have included ticket sponsorship that allowed the British Big Issue football team to travel to Cape Town to compete in the Homeless World Cup; a donation of £10,375 to the Clapperboard Youth Project which enabled young people to produce short films that addressed a number of social issues such as bullying, racism and drugs; a donation of £2617 to the Soccer Fix Programme in Merseyside, to educate and engage young people informally in a healthy lifestyle through the medium of sport. Prize tickets have also been donated to charity fundraisers benefiting a number of charities and causes.
Our team in Newcastle have set up a community action group which meets on a quarterly basis to review applications for funding and support. Events throughout the year have raised money for local and national charities and highlighted awareness of Fair Trade products.
We are able to support local charities with funding or flight prize tickets to be raffled at charity fundraisers, In 2006-7 British Airways Community Action Group at Newcastle made donations to 23 local charities supporting hospices, cancer charities, specialist baby units and paediatric intensive care units amongst others.
British Airways Information Management at Newcastle has built up very strong relations with many of the local universities over the years. We support a specialist module at Northumbria University, providing job application and interviewing practice for the students.
We also support a number of community projects in Scotland.