WCIT raises £70,000 for IT for disadvantaged children

The first presentation was to the Treehouse Trust, a London-based UK charity, established in 1997 to provide an educational Centre of Excellence for children with autism. The Treehouse Trust was set up by a group of parents whose children had recently been diagnosed with autism.

The charity received a cheque for £50,920, money raised from ICT Industry Charity Ball (organised by Intellect and supported by the WCIT) plus an additional £10,000 from the WCIT Charitable Trust.

The money will fund an innovative project enabling staff to record the children's progress on PDAs. This will accelerate the progress by which the children's individual educational programmes at the Centre can be tailored to suit the needs of each child, and will also enable staff to spend more time working directly with the children.

Barnardo's, the national charity working with disadvantaged children and their families was chosen as the beneficiary of funds raised at the 7th annual WCIT Charity Walk, an organised walk across some of the most interesting parts of the City of London, which took place in June this year.

This year's walk raised nearly £14,000 and with an additional donation from the WCIT's Charitable Trust Barnardo's received a cheque for £19,923. This money will support the availability of IT to children and young people attending Barnardo's projects across London.

Roger Graham OBE, who recently became the new Master of the WCIT, commented: "As an organisation, it is our goal to become the vehicle for charitable involvement for the ICT sector. These donations therefore mark an important step in the growth of the Trust and our ambitions for the future. Over the next 12 months we plan to build on our successes by introducing new initiatives designed to attract more money and contributions of expertise from the ICT sector to support IT related charity projects."

The money the WCIT has raised for the Treehouse Trust and Barnardo's through its fundraising activities constitutes one element of the work the WCIT has been involved in this year to support worthy causes. Current projects include partnerships with Lilian Baylis School, as well as an exciting new partnership with the planned City Academy in Darwen, Lancashire, sponsored by WCIT Liveryman Rod Aldridge. The school is part of the recently developed City Academy programme, which aims to establish new schools in inner-city areas, developed through partnerships between sponsors.

WCIT has also been heavily involved in its own 'IT 4 Communities' project, its national IT volunteering programme, set up to provide project-based IT help and advice to not-for-profit organisations, based in the UK. The 'IT 4 Communities' initiative has delivered nearly £500,000 worth of pro bono services to the charity sector in the last two years. -ENDS- Picture available on request

The Worshipful Company of Information Technologists (WCIT) is the 100th Livery Company of the City of London, bringing together the centuries old Livery tradition and information technology, the key industry of the new millennium. Since 1992, when the Company was awarded Livery status by the Court of Alderman of the City of London, WCIT has been actively demonstrating the relevance of the Livery tradition to modern day society. The Company uses the time, expertise and resources of its members to promote the information technology profession, and undertake a range of charitable and educational activities. The Company currently has over 650 members - all of whom are senior practitioners in the IT profession.

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