Community
At Arma, we have always believed that it is important to be part of and contribute to the neighbourhood in which we live and work. Our Corporate Social Responsibility programme is therefore geared towards providing impactful philanthropy and mutually beneficial engagement opportunities within our local community.
Arma is proud to sponsor Bookmark, a literacy charity giving children the reading skills and confidence they need for a fair chance in life. Bookmark want every child to read as, currently, more than one in four children in the UK leave primary school unable to read well and over 400,000 children don’t own a single book at home. Bookmark helps children develop the reading skills they need to succeed in school and beyond. They do this through a unique blend of one-to-one volunteer-led reading support, delivering free reading resources to children and providing state-funded primary schools with diverse books and resources to create engaging reading spaces for their pupils.
Arma is proud to sponsor Power The Fight’s fundraising efforts. An award-winning charity, which aims to be the conduit between communities and policy makers, Power The Fight creates co-produced/co-designed long-term strategies for sustainable structural change. Most of the charity’s work is with young people, families, schools, local authorities, faith groups and community organisations who want to be equipped to engage with youth violence issues in their context. Power The Fight exists to empower communities to end violence affecting young people. Its key aims are to educate, equip, engage and enable communities to be the answer to the issue of youth violence the UK.
Team London Bridge
Arma’s office is proudly located in London Bridge which makes us a member of Team London Bridge, the business improvement district for the area. Comprising of 350+ business members, they are working towards making London Bridge one of the most sustainable, culturally innovative and compelling places for business and tourism in the world. Some of the work that Team London Bridge deliver on behalf of the business community includes grants and gifts at Christmas for local charities, leading on the district’s carbon reduction agenda, improving employees’ safety and overall experience in the area, and much more.
Humanitarian support for Ukraine
Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has caused a tragic humanitarian crisis with thousands of lives lost and millions of families displaced. Arma has made a donation to the Disasters Emergency Committee (DEC), who are providing vital support on the ground through 15 leading charities. Beyond the firm’s contribution, our Matched Giving Policy matches charitable donations made by our staff and this is further complemented by the UK government’s commitment to match donations to the DEC up to the value of £20 million. We hope that our efforts go some way in showing our support for, and solidarity with, the Ukrainian people in their time of need.
Covid-19 Fundraiser
As part of the Covid-19 pandemic response, Arma organised a digital relay involving back to back physical endurance efforts by our employees with virtual hand-overs over the course of a single day. From London to California, Arma employees ran, walked and cycled, accumulating a remarkable 515 kilometres on the day with some colleagues covering over 40 kilometres each. This included a 140km, 10 hour, socially distant relay event charting a continuous route across London ending at The Shard. Beyond the fundraising effort, the event also reminded us of the importance of physical and mental wellness during these anxious and uncertain times. The money raised has been donated to the Trussell Trust, a charity working to end the need for food banks in the UK and to the Guy’s and St Thomas’ NHS Trust, which remains one of the few High Consequence Infectious Disease (HCID) Treatment Centres in the UK.
Philanthropy
Our current philanthropy programme is focused on the Youth Futures Fund, a new fund set up by the well-established London Community Foundation, with the aim of improving the wellbeing and mental health of young people across the city, particularly those that have been hard hit by the pandemic and are facing worsening job prospects, greater risk of violence and abuse and fewer opportunities and activities. The London Community Foundation has already invested over £100 million across the capital, and we are really excited to partner with them for this new initiative.
Volunteering
We encourage our employees to get involved with volunteering opportunities in our local community. That can mean spending a lunch hour sharing skills with local sixth formers in our offices or joining clients on a variety of charitable activities. Our employees are entitled to a day’s paid volunteering leave on top of their annual allowance to work with a charity of their choice.
Catbytes
Arma is proud to support Catbytes, a Community Interest Company based in Lewisham, with annual donations of laptops and electronic devices. Catbytes’ mission is to address the needs of those whose ability to access the internet and other digital technologies is limited. They do this by providing digital education, recycled computer equipment and ongoing support. Last year, Catbytes loaned out 545 devices, including 335 laptops. All loans are free of charge and clients are encouraged to return the devices if they stop using them so they can find a new borrower. Devices that are no longer usable are recycled according to their 95% no-landfill policy.