Europe, Middle East, and Africa
Junior Achievement Africa - Creating bright, boundless futures for African youth
Implementation partner: Junior Achievement Africa
Grant duration: 3 years
Projected impact: 550,000 people
This partnership with JA Africa and JA Wolrldwide will empower young people across Africa to succeed as both innovative job creators and well-qualified job seekers. This collaboration will enable thousands of youth in nine countries to access programs that set them on the path to success, not just as individuals but as leaders who influence positive change within their communities.
Austria - Providing access to prevention, diagnosis and therapy for disadvantaged youth
Implementation partner:Verein T.I.W.
Grant duration: 5 years
Projected impact:38,900 people
This program will increase health competence with young people as a success factor for workplace integration. With this grant, we are taking a stand for disadvantaged youth and their health care and health education needs. This local program will also support the establishment and operation of the “T.I.W. Gesundheitszentrum powered by Z Zurich Foundation” (T.I.W. Health Care Center) in Vienna, open to young people in these programs.
Through a previous three-year grant with Verein T.I.W, we worked with people facing limited prospects of finding employment.
France – Fighting against social determinism and promoting educational opportunities for youth
Implementation Partner:Télémaque
Grant duration: 3 years
Projected impact: 1,300 people
This program aims to fight social determinism and promote equal opportunities in education, in collaboration with Zurich Insurance PLC in France.
This grant aims to support more than 400 young people per year who have the desire to succeed but lack the keys and the means to achieve their ambitions. This program will help facilitate social success and access to employment, through courses, English coaching and help with professional integration.
It will also youth to build their self-confidence through an innovative personal development program, build social ties and sociocultural awareness through educational workshops and company visits, and connect them with Zurich France employees who will help them discover the world of work.
Ireland – Increasing education outcomes for disadvantaged young people
Implementation partners: University College Dublin (UCD) and Zurich Ireland
Grant duration: 4 years
Projected impact: 650 people
A four-year intervention program in Ireland, together with the University College Dublin (UCD) and Zurich Ireland to narrow the socio-economic gap on education outcomes for young people.
Designed by UCD, the ‘Power 2 Progress’ program seeks to foster educational resilience in the Irish educational system with a three-year intervention plan for senior cycle DEIS school students and by informing on educational policy for future students via an integrated four-year PhD. This program targets 4 tuition groups each at 15 schools with ten pupils per group. It aims to transform the lives of 600 pupils, and positively impact many more (such as the teacher participants, and those benefiting from the eventual policy reform this program seeks to influence).
Isle of Man – Helping young people navigate the job market through a career portal
Implementation partner:Junior Achievement
Grant duration:3 years
Projected impact: 21,050 people
This grant is supporting a new career platform with Junior Achievement. Through this portal, young people will have access to relevant skills-building content in various mediums, 'youth friendly' job opportunities, and practical tools to build CVs, prepare and practice for interviews and gain direct exposure to employers.
In addition to this, and most importantly, we aim to empower young people by helping them to build confidence and self-esteem that will enable them to be successful in life.
Italy – Bridging the knowledge and skills gap between schools and the workplace
Implementation partners: Junior Achievement Italy, Zurich Italy
Grant duration: 3 years
Projected impact:10,000 people
Youth unemployment is extremely high in Italy, especially in the south and one of the principal reasons for this is the large gap between what students are taught at high school and the skills needed by large businesses and firms.
In collaboration with JA Italy, we aim to create awareness of relevant topics with an engaging approach that allows students to develop specific skills for which we see an increasing demand in the professional world.
A new curriculum, focused on protection and prevention, has been added to the established educational entrepreneurship program, Ideas in Action. This program benefits students, teachers, and volunteers by fostering a positive social return on investment. The curriculum bridges the gap between school and workplace, encouraging students to devise entrepreneurial ideas related to 'protection and prevention'. It enhances soft skills and active citizenship skills, vital for understanding social and environmental issues, irrespective of students' future career choices.
Volunteers and teachers, termed 'Dream Coaches', receive thorough training in educational entrepreneurship. The program emphasizes empowering teachers with experiential learning practices for their teaching, promoting professional development and enhancing teacher-student relationships.
Slovakia – Motivating and supporting young women in pursuing STEM studies and careers
Implementation partner: Aj Ty v IT
Grant duration:5 years
Projected impact:32,600 people
This grant will empower young girls and teenagers to choose STEM as a career, in collaboration with Aj Ty v IT.
This grant will help Aj Ty v IT expand its program to regional cities in Slovakia to reach more girls at an early age, and to encourage teachers and other stakeholders to become involved. Our grant is intended to provide a support structure for female IT students at universities. We’re looking to develop more strategic tools to create a step change, including an educational roadmap, an awareness campaign and a network to support female students.
Spain - Addressing high youth unemployment by creating job opportunities
Implementation partner: Dual Vocational Training in Insurance (DVT)
Grant duration: 4 years
Projected impact:1,200 people
Youth unemployment in Spain is at 39.5%.This grant focuses on educating and training young people and promoting positive mental wellbeing to improve their employability. It also emphasizes diversity and inclusion in the insurance sector.
After DVT students have completed training and apprenticeships, this program creates job opportunities within the companies where they did their apprenticeships.
Spain – Creating employment opportunities for young people excluded from the traditional school system
Implementation partner: El Lindar, Sabadell Spain
Grant duration: 3 years
Projected impact: 9,500 people
This grant aims to increase employability for young people in vulnerable circ*mstances. El Lindaris a second-chance school, providing guidance and support to teenagers and young people through personalized and real-life job training programs.
The diverse learning experiences help to guarantee that participants can build their own learning paths and develop their basic, technical and transversal competences to help them grow personally and professionally.
The Digital Manufacturing program accompanies students for three years: from ‘school dropout’ to a job placement in the industry.
Spain – Focusing on youth empowerment with a second learning chance for young students
Implementation partner: Junior Achievement
Grant duration: 4 years
Projected impact:25,200 people
This grant will support young people starting their careers through a three-pillar initiative, in collaboration with Junior Achievement, and the Get Ready for Life program.
Under the “Z-Shake” umbrella, our three local grants focus on youth empowerment by providing young people with the workshops, training and apprenticeships they need to fulfil their potential in life. Participants will have the chance to go even deeper by addressing the mental health issues that can come with unemployment. “Z-Shake” equips young people to be better prepared for the future and provides resources to deal with key risks such as stress and anxiety.
Switzerland– Supporting children in understanding and exercising their rights
Implementation partner: Ombuds Office for Children’s Rights Switzerland
Grant duration: 4 years
Projected impact:40,600 people
Our grant will enable the Ombuds Office for Children's Rights Switzerland to offer a national service, covering all cantons, that helps children and those up to the age of 18 to better understand and exercise their rights in legal proceedings. The service will help people with accessing age-adapted legal information and offers mediation between them and courts, authorities, public or private institutions or organizations involved in the care of children and young people.
Turkey – Training women teachers as social entrepreneurs
Implementation partner:Türk Eğitim Derneği(Turkish Education Association).
Grant duration: 6 years
Projected impact: 141,500 people
A six-year program to support female teachers in the first year of their career, in collaboration with Türk Eğitim Derneği (Turkish Education Association).
“Our Teachers: Insurance of Education” is a program with the ambition of supporting 1,000 female teachers assigned to villages/small towns in the first year of their career by offering tailored personal and professional development plans.
The objective is to try to reduce the environmental, physical and professional challenges experienced by the teachers, to enhance their knowledge, and to improve the confidence and motivation of these people that play such a critical part in children’s education and future. In addition to teachers, this program will also directly impact more than 30,000 children, and indirectly impact 150,000 family members.
