00:00My name's Ellie and I've been volunteering at Nissan Sunderland since I started.
00:09I'm Claire, I joined them when it was set up as a new initiative at Nissan Sunderland.
00:16It started off by reaching out to Sunderland Council as a contact and just seeing if they could put us in touch with any charities.
00:23But it's kind of built up since then.
00:25We arrange typically around 70 volunteering events each month from a range of local charities across regions surrounding Sunderland and other areas.
00:35All employees at Nissan get two days allocated every year to go out and do volunteering in the community.
00:41We often get employees that will come to me and Claire and other members of the volunteering pillar to suggest charities that are close to their heart.
00:49Follow us in Sunderland, just one of the amazing charities that we support month on month.
00:54It's one of the ones that we'll have one of the best relationships with because employees tend to request each month that we'll have volunteering days with them.
01:01We've also helped a couple of charities organise how they run their charities, so one of the food banks for example.
01:07We had some people that had that skill set and could help them improve their processes.
01:12We're often asked if we can go back and how much they appreciate the time and support we've given them.
01:19A lot of the charities now, they reach out to us to ask us for help because they've heard through word of mouth from another charity about how good the Nissan staff are.
01:29Here at one of our volunteering events that we've arranged, we're participating in the Walk for Acceptance with the North East Autism Society.
01:37We're going to be helping set up the event, putting up the marquees, we're going to be helping marshal the walk and then we're going to be packing everything down at the end and just making sure everyone gets through the walk okay.
01:49It's great that we get the opportunity to come and support charities such as the Autism Society, which is really important within the North East.
01:55It's actually the fourth year that I've been here to support this. It's great to be able to come back every year.
02:00It gives you an opportunity to change your headspace and do something different as well.
02:03The amount of people that were in the plant, we could give so much back as a company and places and things like this is great for that.
02:09As part of Nissan's EV360 project, it's important to focus on all elements of a sustainable future.
02:17By strengthening the connections between the industry and local organisations, which provide crucial support for our community, we're really helping to drive positive change.
02:28Our plant is obviously a massive part of Sunderland in our local area.
02:33It houses obviously a wide network of employees and this allows our employees to know what that feeling is like to go and actually give back to your local community.
02:43What motivates me is that although this isn't actually part of what I do in my day to day job, it's going above and beyond to ensure that we are giving local charities and organisations who do need volunteering support, that support.
