80 Telenet staff cycle The Big Ride.
Liberty Global raises over one million euros to help African children go to school.
Wednesday, June 22, 2016 — Eighty Telenet staff have taken part yesterday and today in The Big Ride, a two-day bike ride organised by the Lessons for Life Foundation, which was co-founded by Liberty Global, the parent company of Telenet. With the 290km long bike ride, Lessons for Life wants to raise funds to help send a total of 50,000 African children to school by 2017. CEO John Porter has handed over a cheque for €80,000 to the Lessons for Life Foundation on behalf of Telenet.
The Big Ride has been organised since 2012 by the Lessons for Life Foundation, which was co-founded by Liberty Global, the parent company of Telenet. The 2016 ride started yesterday (Tuesday 21 June) and ended this afternoon in Mechelen. Over 450 people from Belgium, the Netherlands, Germany, Switzerland, Poland, the United Kingdom, Ireland, Denmark and the United States cycled one of the different cycle routes, including eighty employees from Telenet. They included Jeroen Bronselaer, senior vice-president of residential marketing. Field cyclist Tom Meeusen from the Telenet Fidea Team also appeared at the start this year.
Most of the routes had Mechelen as destination, apart from a local tour in the American city of Denver. The participating Telenetters rode from Mechelen to Eindhoven on the first day, and returned to Mechelen today. All 450 participants were expected at the Telenet headquarters from 4.00 p.m. onwards. After a final lap of honour through the Telenet building, they rode over the finishing line into the KV Mechelen stadium.
Education
The participating teams have raised a total of over €1,000,000. Telenet itself has contributed about €80,000. The money will go to the Lessons for Life Foundation, a fund which was formed in 2008 with the aim of giving a total of 50,000 children in Africa the chance to go to school by 2017. Liberty Global, the chief shareholder of Telenet, is one of the founder partners of the Lessons for Life foundation.
Telenet is supporting this action because the employees want to ‘commit themselves together’ to supporting a good cause. Telenet conducts an active CSR policy (corporate social responsibility) which is based on three pillars: The structural support of (1) initiatives in which Telenet employees commit themselves actively to supporting a good cause, (2) digitalisation projects which give everyone the chance to develop their talents, and (3) projects and initiatives which strengthen local communities.
Social commitment
Telenet employees are important ambassadors of the CSR policy of the Belgian telecommunication, media, and entertainment company. For example, Telenet encourages its employees to show social commitment by allowing them to take one free day a year to do voluntary work. This is already the third time this year that Telenet employees have committed themselves together to supporting a good cause. In recent months, 24 Telenetters have cycled 1000 kilometres together for the Cancer foundation ‘Kom op Tegen Kanker’ and 45 colleagues from BASE took part in the 20km ride through Brussels in aid of the Braille league.
Twitter: @LFL_Foundation #BigRide4Africa