`We rely heavily on the support of local companies and their staff’

Every year, one in four people will experience a mental health issue, and hundreds of thousands of people in the UK are currently living with a mental illness.

Suffolk Mind continues to play an integral part in building mental wellbeing resilience and delivering specialist support to the people of Suffolk via services such as talking therapies, peer support, education, employment and housing support.

Emma Dinwoodie HR manager for engagement at MSC UK said: “We were thrilled to have Suffolk Mind voted as our charity of the year by our employees as it supported our desire to improve awareness of mental health in the workplace.

“Through their workplace wellbeing training, we have been able to access support to our employees via ‘sleep-well, work-well’ workshops and improve awareness of the importance of good mental health.

“We look forward to fostering an ongoing partnership with the charity, continuing to raise awareness and positively impacting on the wellbeing of our employees.”

Each September, MSC employees vote to select a charity for which they will raise funds throughout the following year. This year’s total for Suffolk Mind is the highest yet achieved.

Anne Gordon, finance director formed the MSC UK Social Policy Committee to manage staff charitable fundraising and donations in April 2010. To date, £230,702 has been raised by employees for local and national charities.

Jon Neal, CEO of Suffolk Mind added: “It has been fantastic working with MSC over the last 12 months. We rely heavily on the support of local companies and their staff, like those at MSC, to continue our commitment to improving the lives of those affected by mental health and this donation will make a huge difference. We look forward to continuing our partnership with MSC in the future.”

MSC UK is a major local employer with around 600 staff in Ipswich.