Community gets active for Mental Health Awareness Week

Employees, customers, and community put their best foot forward to help raise £16,458 for Isle Listen.

To coincide with Mental Health Awareness Week earlier this year, Isle Listen launched a £100 in 100 days challenge, but members of the Zurich team wanted to make it even bigger, so they proposed a walking challenge to do 10,000 steps every day for 10 days, to reach a target of 10 million steps. Zurich gathered participants from various businesses and community groups to rise to the challenge, including: Boal & Co, Canada Life, Castle Rushen High School, Equiom, Kestrel Insurance, Laxey School, MAC Financial Group, Manx Telecom, Morning Momentum, Nedbank, PokerStars, and Robinsons. A total of 104 participants joined the challenge.

The Z Zurich Foundation (the Foundation), a charitable foundation funded by various members of the Zurich Insurance Group, provided match funding and offered a £10,000 donation to Isle Listen if everyone completed the challenge. The fundraising campaign was also available on MyImpact, an engagement platform powered by the Foundation, offering automatic matching from the Foundation. After an amazing effort all the participants hit the 10,000 steps challenge target resulting in over 10 million steps, and meaning that the final donation made to Isle Listen was £16,458. The funding will be used to support the school programme Isle Listen delivers to students across the Isle of Man, which educates children on mental health and wellbeing.

Stephanie Hatton, Corporate Benefits Executive at Zurich Integrated Benefits, led the company’s fundraising challenge. She said: “The goal of the initiative was to encourage our community to come together to not only support a brilliant local mental health charity but to also get walking and talking during Mental Health Awareness Week, highlighting the importance of conversation and movement when it comes to supporting mental wellbeing. Zurich and the Z Zurich Foundation have a long and successful association with Isle Listen. Over the years we have provided support to help the excellent work they do across the local community, and they have also trained our team of Mental Health First Aiders. We must say a big thank you to everyone who took part in this challenge, their sponsors, Isle Listen for all of the comradery during the event, and the Z Zurich Foundation for providing such a generous donation.”

Ruth Adamson, Z Zurich Foundation EMEA Regional Engagement Manager, commented: “We supported this amazing initiative as part of the Z Zurich Foundation’s Customer and Distributor Community Engagement Program which aims to engage businesses in important charitable activities that benefit communities in the locations where we operate. By supporting Isle Listen as a team – colleagues, clients, and partners – we’ve shown the positive impact we can have when we unite behind a cause that matters, helping to support better mental wellbeing for young people. It’s a great example which shows what can be achieved when communities work together to take action that makes a real difference.”

Steven Downward, Schools and Fundraising Lead at Isle Listen, said: “We are delighted to be in receipt of continued support from Zurich and the Z Zurich Foundation, this time collaborating on such a fun and engaging initiative of the Step Challenge. As a mental health charity, we know there is a strong link between exercise and improved mental health. We hope this challenge enabled participants to feel better within themselves and had a lasting impact of encouraging healthy choices to improve physical and mental health, as well as collaborating with their community. We are so impressed that the 10 million steps target was hit. It’s an impressive feat which enabled us to secure a healthy donation from a combination of donations and funding support from the Z Zurich Foundation. The money raised will support our educational programmes in both primary and secondary schools covering core mental health topics across all key stages.”

Isle Listen relies heavily on fundraising for its charitable work which costs approximately £1,000,000 per year. This work focuses on preventative mental health education for young people on the Isle of Man. This programme is delivered to just over 10,000 young people per year.

[Isle Listen & Zurich]: Pictured at Zurich House are (standing, left to right) Henrietta Games, Marketing Manager at Isle Listen, and Ruth Adamson, Z Zurich Foundation EMEA Regional Engagement Manager. Seated, left to right, are Stephanie Hatton, Corporate Benefits Executive at Zurich Integrated Benefits, and Juan Christian, Events Manager at Isle Listen.