BOSTON, Aug. 12, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- Z Zurich Foundation
(ZZF) announced today—International Youth Day—that it will partner
with JA Worldwide and JA Africa, building on relationships already
established with JA Canada and Junior Achievement España (JA Spain)
and expanding them globally.
According to the African Development Bank, each year, 10 to
12 million African students finish their education and compete for
three million jobs, resulting in sub-Saharan African youth
becoming entrepreneurs by necessity, not by choice. The ZZF-JA
partnership empowers young people in Africa to succeed as both innovative job
creators and well-qualified job seekers, following the path best
suited to their economic realities.
"The partnership integrates the education and economic
ecosystems of the countries in which we work," said JA Worldwide
CEO Asheesh Advani, "leading to
long-term sustainability. Over the course of the next three years,
this partnership will impact the lives of more than 550,000 young
people across nine countries—Burkina Faso, Congo, Côte d'Ivoire, Liberia, Sierra
Leone, South Africa,
Tanzania, Togo, and Uganda—resulting in greater capacity
in four current JA Africa countries and brand-new operations in
five more."
"JA Africa is a trusted and well-respected NGO that has
partnered with local leadership and communities across the African
continent for over 40 years," added Brandie
Conforti, Global Chief Development Officer at JA Worldwide.
"And, as part of the global JA network, JA Africa has the advantage
of drawing on the best practices, curricula, pedagogies, effective
governance models, fundraising, communications, and
financial-management capacity of over 100 JA member locations, five
additional JA regions, and a global headquarters, all of which
provide the solid foundation upon which this partnership is
built."
Grégory Renand, Head of Z Zurich Foundation, agreed. "JA is best
known for utilizing volunteers to deliver educational experiences.
We are very proud of this new partnership, delivering interventions
and skill-based expertise with the aim to create brighter futures
in Africa, building on impactful
programs we've already built with JA around the world. The Z Zurich
Foundation's expertise on social equity and mental well-being
nicely complements JA's track record in building resilience and
self-efficacy in more than 12 million young people every year."
JA Africa CEO Simi Nwogugu has
led efforts in Nigeria and
sub-Saharan Africa for more than 25 years. "Many young
Africans are entrepreneurial by nature," she said, "but may be
limited in their ability to develop solutions to the challenges
around them and capture value from those solutions. The ZZF-JA
partnership will help African youth develop the resilience,
problem-solving and design-thinking skills, and mental well-being
they need to understand the complex problems in the region and
design sustainable solutions, and mentorship will play an important
role.
"Exposing African youth to Zurich Insurance Group employees as
global mentors," Nwogugu continued, "as well as to JA Africa alumni
and role models such as Iyinoluwa Aboyeji, who has founded not one
but two unicorns in Nigeria, will
help build the critical social skills and confidence necessary to
validate their ideas and communicate them to a global audience of
funders and clients."
The announcement was made today at an event through which
members of African media were able to ask questions, with a special
interest in scaling and fast-tracking entrepreneurship education in
Africa. The panelists noted that Z
Zurich Foundation, JA Worldwide, JA Africa, and JA member countries
in Africa are working to create a
new breed of partnership that develops an ecosystem of role models
and mentors who work with youth through a mix of high-tech digital
learning experiences; low-tech options like television, radio, and
podcasts; and face-to-face experiences. Then, after students
graduate, regional and local vehicles that either match students
with employers or help youth launch businesses through incubators
and seed grants.
"For Africa to be successful as
a continent," said Nwogugu, "all our youth need access to immersive
education that leads to economic success. Through this partnership,
we'll create entrepreneurship ecosystems that work together to fuel
young Africans to become changemakers, creating businesses that
solve the continent's challenges with climate change, food
shortages, and inadequate infrastructures for health and
education."
About JA
Worldwide
As one of the world's largest and most-impactful youth-serving
NGOs, JA Worldwide delivers hands on, immersive learning in work
readiness, financial health, entrepreneurship, sustainability,
STEM, economics, citizenship, ethics, and more. Reaching more than
12 million young people each year through over 400,000 teachers and
business volunteers, JA Worldwide is one of few organizations with
the scale, experience, and passion to build a boundless future for
the next generation of innovators, entrepreneurs, and leaders.
Visit us at jaworldwide.org and read alumni impact stories at
jaworldwide.org/alumni.
About JA Africa
As one of the Africa's largest
and most-impactful youth-serving NGOs, JA Africa has a presence in
13 countries in sub-Saharan Africa and collectively reaches over
300,000 youth in more than 3,000 schools each year. JA Africa
works in Côte d'Ivoire, Eswatini, Gabon, Ghana,
Kenya, Mauritius, Nigeria, Senegal, South
Africa, Tanzania,
Uganda, Zambia, and Zimbabwe. Visit ja-africa.org for details.
About Z Zurich
Foundation
The Z Zurich Foundation works alongside Zurich Insurance Group
employees and other stakeholders as well as with governments
and NGOs in pursuit of a future where people can thrive in the face
of increasing climate hazards, where those of us feeling the
stresses of life are empowered to speak up, and where the
marginalized in our society can reach their full
potential.
The Z Zurich Foundation is a Swiss-based charitable
foundation established by members of the Zurich Insurance
Group. It is the main vehicle by which Zurich Insurance
Group delivers on its global community investment strategy.
Visit the Z Zurich Foundation's website to learn more about
its work: https://zurich.foundation.
Contact
Tere
Stouffer
Chief Marketing Officer
JA Worldwide
+1-212-641-0747
tere.stouffer@jaworldwide.org
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