Recognition for Mannok educational partnerships
Company highly commended in Responsible Business Awards for Educational Partnerships
MANNOK have been highly commended in the Responsible Business Awards for Educational Partnerships category of Northern Ireland’s Business in the Community 2022 Awards, for demonstrating their commitment to support young people and benefit their aspirations and achievements through their comprehensive educational partnerships within the Mannok Futures Programme.
The prestigious awards ceremony, championing responsible business, took place on 8 September at the ICC Belfast. Mannok attended the event and hosted a range of guests from many of their partnering organizations, including Mount Lourdes Grammar School, South West College, and Ulster Wildlife.
During the event, transformational stories of businesses taking real action to build thriving communities were showcased. There were 10 award categories, with only two of the categories having highly commended recognitions, to celebrate businesses demonstrating strong, inclusive leadership, and continually innovating to tackle pressing social issues and to repair and rebuild the planet.
Commenting on the recognition, Mannok HR manager Caroline McCaffrey said: ‘We are very proud to receive this highly commended acknowledgement for our work to support young people through our educational partnerships. As a large employer for the Fermanagh Cavan region committed to supporting young people and benefiting the socio-economic prosperity of the rural area, we have been successfully implementing our educational partnerships for many years.
‘Our educational partnerships are an area we have worked incredibly hard to develop to address issues such as brain drain and really showcase the calibre of opportunities available for young people here on their doorstep. We’ve built very strong, mutually beneficial relationships with our partners, which, most importantly, bring significant benefits to those post-primary students who will be the future workforce and industry leaders of this area.’
The Mannok Futures Programme includes a diverse range of educational collaborations, including three flagship secondary school partnerships, the first commencing in 2016 with St Michael’s College, Enniskillen. Since then, new partnerships with St. Aidan’s, Derrylin, and Mount Lourdes Grammar School have proven that the best-practice framework can be adapted and transferred successfully.
The collaborations, which each have themes ranging from sustainability to business insights, involve cross-curricular support to deliver unique initiatives and help enrich young people’s learning experience, whilst also helping to develop facilities in schools.
Another dimension of the Mannok Futures Programme is successful partnerships with universities and colleges, such as South West College, Ulster University, and Queen’s University, to offer tailored and supported placements which complement college-based learning.
Commending Mannok on their accolade, Sinead Cullen, principal of Mount Lourdes Grammar School, said: ‘It was a pleasure to join Mannok at the Business in the Community 2022 Awards and we are delighted that this responsible business received an accolade for all the work it does to support young people throughout the local area.
‘Our Partnership in Sustainability Programme with Mannok began in 2021, and since its commencement, they have helped us incorporate many fun, interactive learning initiatives into a range of our departments. In our classrooms, they facilitated a live streaming kestrel cam, a demonstration beehive, recycling initiatives, and art projects, providing a more enriching learning experience for students.
‘We are grateful for this local company’s support to benefit our pupil’s learning and development. We congratulate them on their success and look forward to continuing our collaboration.’
Mannok plan to expand their support for young people in the region by increasing the number of post-primary educational partnerships to five by 2025 as part of their Mannok 2030 Vision sustainability strategy.
