John Laing’s Christmas donation

For the second year running, John Laing, through the John Laing Charitable Trust is making a charitable donation in place of sending Christmas cards.

To help select which charity would receive the donation, all John Laing staff were invited to nominate.  The only criteria was that the people nominating had to care passionately about the charity’s work, and the £5,000 donation to be made, would have to make a real difference to them.

Applications were received for many charities and organisations that had touched the lives of our staff.  The nominations were then judged by a selection of people from across the business.  The winning charity is Chance UK.

Chance UK organises mentoring programmes for five to eleven year olds with behavioural difficulties who are at risk of developing anti-social or criminal behaviour later in life.  Chance UK aims to intervene early in the lives of vulnerable children to help them, and their familities, begin to build a brighter future.  Generally speaking the children that Chance UK supports are not easy to manage, inattentive, lacking in self-confidence, and have problems making friends or getting on with adults.  Many of them also have to cope with neglect, inadequate parental supervision, poverty and an unstable home life.

Chance UK aims to support the children on their programme is by carefully matching them with a mentor. The mentor helps the child bring about positive changes in his or her life. Child and mentor meet once a week for one year. During the first couple of months the mentor works towards building a trusting supportive relationship with the child, thereafter, the mentor concentrates on encouraging the child to identify and fulfil worthwhile ambitions.

The nomination for Chance UK was put forward by Jamie Kerr, Managing Director of John Laing Projects & Developments.  He trained as a mentor in early 2007.

John Laing is delighted to support this extremely worthwhile charity.