Cititec has enjoyed a long and rewarding relationship with Hoja Secondary School in Southern Tanzania since its inception 12 years ago. Hoja is a rural school in Songea, built by the local community. Attendance is free for its 400 pupils - equal parts boys and girls. Over the years, Cititec has helped fund several projects such as a computer lab, solar energy system, a water well and a new roof. Most pupils are from disadvantaged backgrounds often AIDS or Malaria orphans. Despite it's rural location, the school achieves academic excellence and is the best of the 185 schools in the Ruvuma region. Hoja School has achieved self-sufficiency in funding and there are now 13 schools in East Africa using the Hoja model. The Hoja Project is part of the Schools for Life Programme instigated by the Newcastle based charity, Coco.

For more information: www.coco.org.uk/what-we-do/schools-for-life/hoja-secondary

Cititec Chairman, Stephen Grant is the co-founder of Code Your Future. CYF is a non-profit organisation offering vocational technology training to refugees and other disadvantaged groups. Cititec initially supported CYF by providing meeting space for the first few student cohorts. This support grew into helping with interview training, CV- writing, and offering our time in helping graduates of the course to secure positions with our clients -, of course, at no cost or fee to the client. CYF considers education and employment in the tech industry to be the best way to offer a leg up in life to the disadvantaged. CYF offers 8-month, part-time training programs in software development focusing on HTML, CSS, Node and React. The organisation has trained over 200 students to junior developer level in classes now running in London, Manchester, Birmingham and Glasgow. Over 70% of eligible graduates have found employment in companies like the Financial Times, BBC, Capgemini, PA Consulting and Ticketmaster, as well as start-ups like Adzuna, Sensible Object, tlr, and WeGotPop.

For more information: www.codeyourfuture.io

DEBRA was founded in 1978 by Phyllis Hilton whose daughter Debra had EB – the charity was the world’s first EB patient support group.

Phyllis wrote to magazines, radio stations, celebrities and hospitals to organise the first meeting for parents of children with EB. 78 people attended the meeting which was held in Manchester –a meeting which led to DEBRA being formed. Sadly on 21 November 1978, the year the charity was founded, Debra passed away.

DEBRA is now international in scope with sister organisations in 40 countries, a worldwide research programme and strong clinical and nursing services. Thanks to funding for care and research, all UK patients have access to state-of-the-art dressings, diagnosis of the specific genetic type of EB is routine, and medical research trials are happening across the world.

DEBRA UK is a charity that touches so many people’s hearts and Cititec is proud to support this charity.James Hamilton-Reed was lucky enough to host several team members at the DEBRA UK annual charity boxing event.Although upsetting at times, the event was superb and raised a total of £85k, with Cititec table contributing over 10% to that figure.

For more information follow the link to find out how the charity helps people whose skin doesn't work:www.debra.org.uk