Lidl Ireland has announced that it is extending its charity partnership with Jigsaw, the National Centre for Youth Mental Health in Ireland, for a further two years.
As part of the new partnership, the retailer has pledged to raise €2.5 million for Jigsaw, which provides free and confidential professional support to young people aged 12 to 25, in 14 centres across Ireland.
To date, Lidl Ireland has raised over €1.8 million for the charity and has committed to raising an additional €700,000 by the end of the partnership, in 2024.
This level of support has seen awareness of Jigsaw rise from 14%, pre-partnership, to 61% by December 2021 – a period that saw a 33% increase in young people accessing its services.
Lidl has partnered with Jigsaw since 2018 and previously extended its partnership with the charity to account for the impact of Covid-19 on youth mental health.
Commenting on the charity partnership extension with Jigsaw, J.P. Scally, CEO at Lidl Ireland, said, “While the data tells us we are seeing increased awareness of mental health difficulties in our youth, more needs to be done.
“We want to empower all Irish adults to support the young people in their lives – through one good adult, club or community – and encourage young people themselves to seek help when and where they need to most,” Scally said.
One Good Community
The focus for the future partnership will be the development, promotion and roll-out of One Good Community, a two-year, community-led, five-step well-being programme for villages, towns and cities across Ireland.
Lidl noted that, across its stores, it has a network of Jigsaw ‘heroes’, who are key ambassadors for the charity and play an important role in its ‘One Good … ’ programmes.
One Good School
To date, the partnership has already directly supported over 65 secondary schools (with a total student population of over 38,500) through the roll-out of One Good School, an integrated programme for students, teachers and parents that empowers schools to strengthen the well-being and mental health of all their students, the discounter highlighted.
Dr Joseph Duffy, CEO of Jigsaw, said, “This is a clear demonstration of [Lidl Ireland’s] ongoing commitment to working with us to change the conversation on youth mental health in Ireland.”
Over the next two years, with ongoing support from Lidl, One Good School will reach an additional 155 schools across 12 counties.
One Good Club
In 2020, Lidl and Jigsaw joined forces with the LGFA, Lidl’s sporting partner, to implement One Good Club – a five-step youth mental health awareness programme rolled out across 25 LGFA clubs in 25 counties across Ireland.
© 2022 Checkout – your source for the latest Irish retail news. Article by Donna Ahern. For more retail news, click here. Click sign up to subscribe to Checkout.
