We continue to promote employee volunteering as a way our people can become engaged with their local communities and help good causes.

Our commitment has resulted in formal policies in many of our businesses, and from 2008, employees will be able to take up to three paid days for volunteer work.

In Ireland, for instance, Hibernian has committed to providing 10,000 hours of staff volunteering annually. Hibernian also joined forces with Aviva India to give seven of its employees the opportunity to volunteer with the Arpana Trust, a Delhi-based NGO that supports disadvantaged youth and older people.

In the UK, over 2,800 Norwich Union employees donated more than 32,500 hours of volunteering in the UK across many different projects in 2007. These included two new nationwide education projects - Climate Change Champions and Paying for It - designed to utilise the expertise of employees.

• Climate Change Champions Fifty-one employee volunteers have now helped more than 250 students, aged 5 to 16, from 29 schools in York, Norwich and Perth to learn more about climate change. Through the programme, schools aim to reduce their carbon footprint by 20% and engage the whole community by requesting individual pledges to support the campaign.
  
  
• ‘Paying For It’ The site also contains ‘Lifescan’, a unique tool that provides a graphic representation of an individual’s position on the areas covered in the ‘Paying For It’ curriculum. This ‘widget’ will be downloadable to Facebook and MySpace pages, giving people a chance to identify and compare themselves. The changes registered over the life of the project will also give individuals a chance to see how their views have changed and give us an overview of the impact the programme has had.

The ‘CommunEcate’ programme has also seen 280 employees deliver 2,661 hours of voluntary e-mentoring for students on the BTEC Communications in Business course.

At Aviva Australia, a committee has been set up comprising representatives from all departments with the purpose of increasing employee volunteering and fundraising. While in Turkey, AvivaSA employees are volunteering for an innovative project to create an online library of audiobooks for blind people.

Case study

Going further for local communities

At Aviva, we look back with pride at our record of community involvement, recognising the huge part that our employees have played in helping us to translate commitment into action. Just one of many examples saw Aviva Canada volunteers run a Careful Teddy Tent at an event in aid of a children’s hospital in Winnipeg, Manitoba, to convey the importance of wearing correctly fitted helmets when cycling. Attended by more than 55,000 people, our volunteers helped to fit and distribute free helmets and handed out stickers and leaflets.

While many of our businesses have formal policies to support employees who want to volunteer, we’re looking to take this further by consolidating all our approaches under a comprehensive community investment strategy. From 2008, eligible employees will be able to take up to three paid days for volunteer work.

Employees in North America have long given their time and effort to fundraising and community projects.

Case study

Baltic coast clean-up

A year after Aviva Lithuania volunteers first assisted with the clean-up of a section of the Baltic coastline after a fire destroyed 200 hectares of forest, staff and sales consultants again helped local government and forestry managers by rebuilding the dunes, and planting a hectare of pine saplings. A new scheme also enables them to donate 2% of their income tax to the National Park’s relief fund.