Mannok is Highly Commended in Responsible Business Awards for Educational Partnerships
Mannok has been highly commended in the Educational Partnership category of Responsible Business Awards, the Business in the Community NI 2022 awards, as the company demonstrated its commitment to support young people and benefit their aspirations and achievements through its comprehensive educational partnerships within the Mannok Futures Programme.
The prestigious and respected awards ceremony, championing responsible business, took place on the 8th September in ICC Belfast. Mannok attended the event and hosted a range of guests from many of its partnering organisations, 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 ten 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 received, the company’s 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, with the first commencing back 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 successfully be adapted and transferred. 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 while also helping to development facilities in schools.
Another dimension of the Mannok Futures Programme is the successful partnerships with universities and colleges, such as South West College, Ulster University and Queen University, to offer tailored and supported placements which compliment college based learning.
Commending Mannok on its accolade, Principal, Sinead Cullen, of Mount Lourdes Grammar School, Mannok’s most recently established educational partnership, said,
“It was a pleasure to join Mannok at the Business in the Community 2022 Awards evening and we are delighted 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 the commencement of this partnership, 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 to this local company’s support to benefit our pupil’s learning and development. We congratulate them on their success and we look forward to continuing our collaboration.”
Mannok has plans to expand its support for young people in the region as it will bring the number of post primary educational partnerships to five by 2025 as part of its Mannok 2030 Vision, the company’s sustainability strategy.