Our national charity for 2011-13 is Barnardo's. This was chosen by a staff vote and we will be raising as much money as possible for their work supporting vulnerable young people and campaigning for children’s rights. This follows our two-year partnership with the homeless charity Shelter.   

We support  SoftPower Education, which is involved in primary education projects in Uganda.  In April 2010 a hardy team of 12 employees and clients travelled to Uganda for a week to visit schools, help paint classrooms and buildings and dig the foundations for three new classrooms at the Wansimba Primary School.  The school has an average of over 110 pupils per class and new class rooms were urgently needed to make the learning experience both more enjoyable and viable.  RJW, it's employees and clients managed to raise over £20,000 for this excellent project.  We hope to return with another group in April 2012.  

Our head office in London is building a relationship with Charlton School, a Group 7 Community Special (ages 11–19) School for students with low incidence special educational needs, in Greenwich and several staff have volunteered at school sports days and other events.

Our London office is also developing a partnership with Victim Support London, providing rooms, recycling phones and donating items to help support witnesses in court. It is also taking part in the London Legal Walk 2011 to raise funds for legal advice agencies in London and the South East (you can support the team here).  Staff in London, Birmingham and Manchester also volunteered to collect for the poppy appeal in October 2010.

We are supporting a unique PhD studentship scheme as part of the Manchester Leadership Programme at Manchester University. This enables three outstanding young researchers to combine PhD research with community-based work experience linked to the leadership programme. These are focused on improving the choices and chances of young people living in Wythenshawe, one of Manchester’s most deprived areas.

Most of our offices across the UK also provide work experience for trainee secretaries and work placements for university students as well as supporting mentoring schemes and giving career talks for students considering the law as a profession. In addition, our Sheffield office sponsors graduation prizes at Sheffield Hallam University every year.

For more information, please contact Andy Hoe, our director of Marketing, on a.r.hoe@rjw.co.uk