We've formed a partnership with the e-Learning Foundation, a registered charity dedicated to helping children from low income families get online. We intend to pilot a programme this year that will provide free broadband and support to around 1,000 families (across five cities) whose children have access to a computer and the internet at school but not at home.

We'll also be teaming up with UK online centres, who were set up by the then Department for Education and Skills (DfES) to widen online access for individuals, families and communities. They will be providing a support package for the parents of the children involved in the e-Learning pilot.

We've set ourselves the target of raising £1m for the Foyer Federation, our national supported charity. Our investment will go towards developing a Media Centre programme, exploring how young people can engage in learning and overcome exclusion using media technology.

Working through a network of over 130 integrated learning and accommodation centres, known as Foyers, the Foyer Federation supports over 10,000 young people each year. These 16-25 year olds have experienced a wide range of disadvantage including homelessness, family breakdown, poor physical and mental health and a lack of education and employment opportunities.

Introduced to us by Virgin Unite, Virgin's charitable arm, the Foyer Federation is a 'grassroots' charity in need of the profile and support that we think we can provide. Many Foyers are close to our sites which will provide lots of great volunteering and fundraising opportunities for our employees.

Here's how we're planning to raise a million:

• 'Text to donate': we've invited our customers to help us raise money and for every £1 they donate, we'll match it, pound for pound
• '118 918': we've set up a new directory enquiries service that gives 20p of each call to charity, 15p of which goes to the Foyer Federation
• 'Handset recycling scheme': gives customers the chance to donate the value of their phone to charity with the money raised match-funded by the company

We'll also be providing some specific mentoring training for our employees to enable them to mentor Foyer residents and looking for ways of supporting their advertising through Virgin Media TV.

We're working with Digital Unite, an organisation that helps older people get online. As well as supporting their Silver Surfers' Day Campaign, we're selecting 17 sheltered housing schemes to receive a 'get online' package, which contains computers (2 per site), software and accessories, plus a 7 week training programme to get to grips with the net and free broadband for a year.

On top of that, we're getting our employees involved too. Last year we ran a successful 'bring your grandparents to work day' across our sites that helped acquaint a number of elderly people with the internet. We're running more this year in support of the Silver Surfers' Day Campaign.