- Inditex and Entreculturas NGO renewed partnership that will execute 22 new social projects
- Nine countries in Latin America, South Africa and the Lebanon will benefit from 22 new educational, employment and humanitarian aid programmesç
- One million people have received direct aid since the two institutions began to collaborate back in 2001
Arteixo, Spain, 2016-Dec-01 — /EPR Retail News/ — Today (29/11/2016), the chairman and CEO of Inditex, Pablo Isla, and the managing director of Entreculturas NGO, Daniel Villanueva, renewed the collaboration agreement to which the two entities are party for the next three years for the continued funding of education, employment and humanitarian aid programmes in Latin America, South Africa and the Lebanon that will directly benefit 165,500 people.
Entitled Educating People, Generating Opportunities (EPGO), the new three-year agreement, which contemplates the execution of 22 social projects between 2017 and 2019, will facilitate the extension of the projects initiated under the scope of the last three-year agreement (2014-16) that have brought assistance and relief to over 160,000 people (for more information about the projects, go to www.unmillondeoportunidades.org).
Education
In the educational arena, one of Entreculturas’ main lines of intervention, the new EPGO programme will prioritise the provision of access to learning for children currently not in the school system and assistance to children and youths susceptible to dropping out of the system in Bolivia, Brazil, Ecuador, Paraguay, Peru, Uruguay and Venezuela. The 18,200 people who will benefit from this programme include youths with disabilities who face social obstacles impeding their integration into school life and the job world and youths living in rural areas and violent urban areas who face difficulties in attending their learning centres with the required assiduity and/or in raising their academic performance. This programme also includes specific plans for the teachers who work with these vulnerable youths.
Employment
The employment projects contemplated under the agreement are centred on the provision of vocational and skills training to youths living in poverty and excluded from the job market with a view to facilitating self-employment or helping them find work. Notably, this programme includes concrete initiatives targeted at young people living in the rural areas of Ecuador most affected by the earthquake of 2016, skills training plans for women and courses on new farming techniques for farmers living in economically-depressed regions. These projects will be carried out in Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Ecuador, Mexico, Paraguay, Peru and Venezuela and will touch the lives of 32,500 people.
Humanitarian aid
The work planned on the humanitarian aid front will concentrate on the provision of assistance to forced migrants and refugees in need of international protection in Mexico, South Africa and the Lebanon and will reach over 114,800 people.
Specifically in Mexico, the programme will provide in-person assistance to people attempting to reach the United States via Mexico, offering them legal counsel, psychological support and covering their basic needs across a network of shelters.
In South Africa, the humanitarian effort will focus on the integration into society and the job market of refugees and displaced people fleeing from armed conflict in other parts of Africa and take the form of educational programmes, skills training, healthcare and essential services.
The Lebanese project, meanwhile, is designed to provide more than 2,400 displaced Syrian children living in refugee camps with access to quality education, psychosocial support and emergency relief such as food and hygiene materials.
15-year collaboration
Inditex and Entreculturas embarked on this collaboration in 2001. During these last 15 years, Inditex has earmarked over €39 million of social investment to education and community development projects carried out by this NGO in Latin America and Africa that have helped almost one million people. Under this new agreement, Inditex will contribute a further €9.8 million of funding over the next three years.
Entreculturas
Entreculturas is a development-focused NGO that champions access to education as the means to social change and cross-cultural dialogue. It targets its educational initiatives at the most vulnerable populations of 41 countries in Latin America, Africa and Asia and runs a host of training, volunteering and social awareness programmes as well as campaigns designed to encourage critical thinking.
For any press request please contact with:
Communication and Corporate Affairs Division
Edificio Inditex
Avda. de la Diputación s/n
15143 – Arteixo
A Coruña – ESPAÑA
Tlf: +34 981 185 400
Fax: +34 981 185 544
comunicacion@inditex.com
Source: Inditex
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