Employees give their time to community projects they care about through the Nokia Helping Hands program. Nokia employees in many countries can take two working days per year to volunteer.

In 2007, employees in 32 countries volunteered for over 32 000 hours of service. They did work such as building schools, cleaning beaches, collecting toys, clothes, and other supplies for people in need, and arranging activities for children and the elderly.

These three examples illustrate the kind of work volunteers get involved in:

Installing digital televisions for the elderly in Finland

In February 2007, 190 Nokia volunteers took the step of training to install digital television. Finland was preparing to transfer to digital signals and this was a difficult change for people uncomfortable with technical devices. To aid the transition the Finnish Traffic and Communications Ministry, and several other organizations launched a special project to encourage volunteers to install digital television for elderly people. This also gave elderly people living alone an opportunity to meet people from their communities. Local volunteers were connected with people who requested the service through a special call-centre.

"Participating sounded fascinating and at the same time I would be able to help the elderly people, so I immediately registered. I was always welcomed warmly and we discussed digital broadcasting in general, the current affairs of the world and of course about the weather", says Ari-Pekka Verta, a Nokia volunteer.

The Workout, USA

In May 2007 Nokia held a special Nokia Helping Hands volunteering day called The Workout to promote volunteering among Nokia employees in the US. Volunteers gave around 850 hours of time to 16 non-profit organizations. Projects included building homes, beautifying neighborhoods, and helping out at food banks and farms. Nokia made a financial contribution to each organization supported by the employee volunteer teams. See the website for more information.

Building schools in Thailand

In March 2007, 33 Nokia employees helped build a school at Baan Segra, in Tak province.

The school has two teachers and 77 children during the day, with 30 adults attending in the evening. But there was no school building so teaching took place in the open. The new building is large enough for the school to take more students from nearby villages. The team traveled 690 kilometers from Bangkok to the village (a trip that took about 12 hours) to help build the new school.