‘Croí an Óir’ supporting Longford communities

This month marks the 10th year of Abbott’s Croí an Óir programme and its impact has been significant.

The Croí an Óir programme, which means ‘Heart of Gold,’ was created to support the commitment of Abbott employees across the country, to give back to their local community.

Each Abbott site ensures that a range of organisations are supported throughout the year – with a local and national focus. Activities range from career talks, science experiments, gardening, fun runs, fundraising for local charities and much more. In 2016 alone, Longford employees generously volunteered over 830 hours in supporting local groups and schools.

Nationwide Croí has delivered over 70,000 volunteer hours, and the programme has had a tremendous impact. Nowhere has the spirit of Croí been more evident than in Longford where some of the highlights have included:

· Abbott Family Science which engages primary school students, their parents and teachers in learning about science through fun experiments. More than 600 Abbott Volunteers have been involved in engaging over 5,000 students and families in education programmes in Ireland since 2009. Every year Abbott in Longford hosts Family Science events where families are encouraged to explore science concepts beyond the classroom.

· Junior Achievement: Abbott employees have used their skills and expertise to deliver innovative enterprise and life skills programmes in over 100 schools since the partnership began in 2003. Abbott seeks to make a significant and long lasting difference to people’s lives in the communities in which it operates and that is why it has developed and fostered this long-term partnership with Junior Achievement Ireland.

· Employees have been supporting the Abbott Fund program to modernize Tanzania’s healthcare infrastructure. Over recent years our experts have volunteered their time, knowledge and skills to help train and mentor local laboratory teams. Their primary objectives: to implement an integrated IT system for patient registration and lab sample management; to train local staff to use the system.

Ciaran Corcoran, Site Director at Abbott in Longford said “At Abbott we believe that being engaged and active in the community is beneficial to living a healthy and happy life. That is why we support volunteering and have put corporate citizenship at the heart of our business.

“We are proud of everything our teams have achieved across Ireland and especially here in Longford over the past ten years. This milestone is a tremendous motivation to do more into the future and the team are continuing to put a big focus on working with young people to encourage their interest in science, technology, maths and engineering. By sparking an interest in science with young people early in their lives, Abbott aim to provide a foundation for the next generation of scientific leaders to shape the future of innovation.

“Our volunteer teams are actively making plans for 2018 – will be involved in Engineers Week, Science Week, Junior Achievement, Enactus, Scifest, Scifest and much more.”