NI Water has expanded its volunteering programme with a new community-led initiative.

The utility's new scheme, Little Ripples, gives staff the opportunity to pitch for their local charity or community group to receive volunteering support and funding.

Rose Kelly, who created the Little Ripples project, said: "NI Water's volunteering programme encourages employees to become involved in charitable and community activities in the places we live. Every month a group of employee volunteers spend a day providing community support by dedicating their time and talent to highly deserving charitable projects. Little Ripples is our latest initiative which allows colleagues to choose the charities we support and this year we have four excellent projects lined up.

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"Our focus with these initiatives is on building community relationships and developing genuine partnerships through our employees to tackle sustainable change in communities.

"Employees gain significant benefits from volunteering including; team-building, learning new skills, pride in making a difference and wellbeing. Our employees are interacting directly with the communities they work and live in, working on a project close to their heart."

The first local charity to secure support through the initiative was the Castlecaulfield Horticultural Society and its 'Bamboo Project'.

Andrew Humphreys from NI Water, who recommended the Bamboo project added: "The main objective of the day was to prepare the area for the construction of a path. This involved clearing weeds and vegetation from the line of the path and removal of waste and litter.

"While fly-tipped waste is easily spotted and removed from land, in water it is more difficult. Nonetheless, our team of seven dedicated volunteers managed to remove a large quantity of damaging waste from the River Torrent."

Future Little Ripples projects include an 'extreme makeover' for a community room, building a greenhouse and creating a timber outdoor workshop.

(CM/JG)