Community credit in here Children’s drawings on display at the Big Draw event at the Newsroom. Photograph: David Levene 40 Living our values It is not only in our editorial coverage that we have an influence over people’s lives. As a company with around 1,500 employees and an ability to tap into a wealth of resources, we are also having a direct impact on the communities we serve. This includes support for schools and journalism projects across the world, as well as HIV projects in Africa The common good The Scott Trust Foundation The range of community activities has become Guardian’s training scheme for young journal- and the War on Terror. One-off workshops also so numerous that we have spent the last year ists in South Africa, the Foundation has run in conjunction with the Newsroom’s rolling putting a more strategic focus on what we do. developed partnerships in some new countries. programme of exhibitions. This has resulted in the creation of the Scott For example, it went to Ukraine to run a sem- The adjoining archive preserves the heritage Trust Foundation, an umbrella organisation for inar on the art of reporting the EU, and invited of our papers and enables others to share our all the activities taking place under the direc- a group of dynamic young Albanians to London history. Researchers can access material rang- tion of our owner, the Scott Trust. to find out about the mechanics of setting up ing from correspondence and photographs to The Scott Trust Foundation’s central remit re- their own newspaper. A new alliance with the illustrations and audio interviews. flects one of the Trust’s key objectives of “pro- BBC World Service Trust is now delivering on- In the coming year, we will be publishing a moting the causes of freedom of the press and line lessons in newspaper writing from Moscow searchable archive catalogue on our website. liberal journalism both in Britain and else- to Colombo. guardian.co.uk/newsroom where.” It has three separate arms: the existing Guardian Foundation, our Newsroom visitor and archive centre, and a newly formed chari- Visitor and Scott Trust table fund. archive centre charitable fund Guardian Our Newsroom visitor and archive centre in Lon- The Scott Trust charitable fund was set up in don continues to build its reputation — receiving 2005 to support projects associated with inde- Foundation more than 10,000 educational visitors from pendent journalism, journalist ethics, media lit- across the UK in the last year. Two full-time ed- eracy and journalist training in the UK and The Guardian Foundation supports the creation ucation officers work with school groups, fur- abroad. The fund’s working group, chaired by Liz and running of successful and editorially inde- ther and higher education students, adult learn- Forgan of the Scott Trust, includes representa- pendent newspapers in eastern Europe and ers and families to create newspaper front pages tives from all Guardian Media Group divisions. southern Africa. Through talks, seminars and using state-of-the-art IT. The popular free work- Offers of financial support have already been practical training involving Guardian Media shops are booked up a year in advance with a made to the Campaign for Freedom of Informa- Group journalists, the foundation aims to share long waiting list. tion, a planned media research centre at Oxford expertise with journalists overseas. The range of activities has been extended fur- University, and the Laurence Stern Fellowship, As well as continued support for long- ther this year to include seminars and confer- which offers an annual bursary for a qualified standing projects, such as financing the Mail and ences on subjects such as careers in the media journalist to work on the Washington Post. Living our values 41 Community GNL community projects Guardian Newspapers Ltd supports schools and charities by providing volunteers, funding and expertise through long-term partnerships. Over 120 (8%) of our employees volunteer regularly — a figure we hope to increase in the coming year by introducing of a time-off policy which will give staff more flexibility to volunteer during working hours for a wide range of community organisations (2005 target 28). Community projects focus on education, journalism and HIV/Aids and for the most part are based locally around our London or Man- chester offices. Further afield we support international communities as an extension of editorial campaigns and through our successful Christmas charity appeal. Education Our popular schools’ volunteering programme involves five partner schools in London and Manchester, which are all typical inner-city schools with students from diverse ethnic and social backgrounds. GNL employees regularly give an hour a week to provide reading, men- toring and special needs support. For the first time this year, we started to eval- uate more accurately the effectiveness of these projects. In the past, we relied on anecdotal ev- idence from students, teachers and volunteers. The young participants on our mentoring project at Elizabeth Garrett Anderson sec- ondary girls’ school in Islington were asked to give anonymous feedback about what, if any- thing, they felt they had gained from the expe- rience. The results were extremely positive, with the young people recognising a boost in confidence, career aspirations and communi- cation skills. For journalists who write about education, Volunteers gained a lot from the experience Volunteers gained race and social deprivation, the volunteering ex- with 91% of them considering that it was posi- perience is invaluable — providing an inside tive overall. They particularly enjoyed the a lot from the view of the issues. Staff at Learn.co.uk, our on- chance to gain fresh perspectives and contribute line resource for schools, also see great benefit positively to their local community. experience, with in the schools’ projects. One in six staff from These encouraging results were echoed by the Learn have volunteered over the past two years teachers at Hugh Myddleton primary school 91% of them and feedback consistently reiterates the value who had reading volunteers in their classes. Of of working with their target audience. five teachers selected at random, all felt the considering that Emily Drabble, newsdesk editor at Learn, said children’s work had improved as a result of the that taking part in the mentoring had “enhanced project and all of them enjoyed the experience it was a positive my professional work. I write for 9-14-year-olds; (2004 target 44 see page 48 ≥). it’s a great reality check to develop friendships We also run one-off collaborative projects experience overall with children in this age group. Also we have set with the schools, often using specific skills we up a system of partner schools… with which to have in the company. One example is a project get feedback about the service we offer.” launched this year at Elizabeth Garrett Ander- We also have an international dimension to son, where a team from our website Guardian our education programme. On the back of a Unlimited is working regularly with a group of Guardian article about a small village in Malawi students to develop their school website. This whose inhabitants were unable to fund their particular project also serves to support GNL’s children’s education, readers donated more than diversity agenda by engaging young women in £20,000. A further £5,000 was raised by a web-based initiative, a sector where women Guardian staff from our annual Christmas raf- are traditionally under-represented (≤see di- fle. As a result, 24 children are now attending versity section page 38). secondary school and we are also paying for the This is not the only way the business benefits local schools to be redeveloped, with libraries from our community projects. For instance, our and new classrooms being built. advertisers can see a practical way in which we guardian.co.uk/gumbi live up to our principles. guardian.co.uk/community 42 Living our values Tending a patient with Aids as part of the Malawian home-based care project, funded by Guardian readers. Photograph: Martin Godwin it influences cultural change, which was pub- Journalism lished as a cover piece for Society Guardian. HIV/Aids Guardian Weekend magazine has even in- In addition to the Newsroom activities which vited some of the young people to write for it. We have been managing a project in Malawi, fall under the Scott Trust Foundation (see page Jordan, 21, covered for Priscilla Kwateng in supported by readers’ donations, which is 4), we support several projects which engage Weekend magazine and guest-wrote her weekly paying for hundreds of people with HIV to get young people with an interest in journalism. Guide to Youth. He said: “Writing for the nutritional support and home-based care, as This year we formed a partnership with Live!, Guardian Weekend was the pinnacle of my pro- well as offering a special test to fast-track those a magazine written and produced solely by fessional career. My friends, family and I were with the most advanced symptoms on to the young people for their peers in south London. hugely pleased and proud. This was an oppor- government’s free life-saving ARV drugs Journalists from the Guardian and the Ob- tunity I was extremely grateful for. Working programme. server support the young writers by providing with staff on the Guardian has helped my writ- In Ghana, GNL is supporting Theatre for a advice on articles which fall within their spe- ing, furthered my knowledge on editorial and Change, a charity that is working with local com- cialism. Live!’s publisher Sam Conniff says what helped me gain further paid writing work.” munities to explore the issues of HIV/Aids and he most values about the partnership is “the re- We continue to support Children’s Express, a sexual health through a programme of group assurance that the young people are receiving charity that gives disadvantaged youngsters a workshops using theatre and interactive video specialist guidance on particularly sensitive voice on topical issues, through the articles they work.