Nissan Backs Uefa Foundation For Children
Nissan is joining UEFA Foundation for Children and streetfootballworld to support grassroots organisations Street League in the United Kingdom and Sport dans la Ville in France.
From February, the two-year partnerships in France and the UK are aligned with activities run by the Nissan Skills Foundation in the UK, which seek to encourage the next generation of talent in design, engineering and manufacturing sectors.
UK organisation Street League’s vision is to see an end to youth unemployment.
As part of the new partnership, Nissan will support academy programmes in the London and Tees Valley areas, which work with 20 young people at any one time over a ten-week period. In 2017 alone, Street League lifted 1,731 young people into employment, education or training. “Street League are delighted to be working in partnership with Nissan to help even more young people find a positive future using the power of sport,” said Matt Stevenson-Dodd, chief executive Street League. “Our Academies do this by offering a mixture of employability sessions, sporting activities and life skills development.”
“Football has a proven ability to bring people together and change lives,” commented streetfootballworld partnership director, Johannes Axster. “We’re grateful that Nissan recognises the potential for football-based social development programmes to empower young people in disadvantaged communities, while also providing Nissan employees with the opportunity to get engaged in meaningful activities in France and the UK.”
Stuart Jackson, VP brand & communications for Nissan Europe said: “At Nissan we believe in creating a cleaner, safer, fairer society through the power of our people and our products. As an official UEFA Champions League partner, we are now looking to harness the power of football to create a fairer society and brighten the futures of young people across Europe.”
Chairman of the UEFA Foundation for Children and UEFA president, Aleksander Čeferin, said: “Improving the employment prospects of underprivileged young people in Europe is a huge challenge for us as a society. We welcome this new partnership with official UEFA Champions League sponsor Nissan Europe, who recognises its responsibility in society and lives up to this by investing in the communities they operate in to increase youth employability.”
Sport dans la Ville is a non-profit association in France, serving disadvantaged boys and girls aged 6-25 by offering sports and job-readiness training. Through its “Job dans la Ville” programme, the organisation provides individual careers support, mentoring, work experience, and skill-building workshops. In 2017, a total of 1,054 youths participated in the Job dans la Ville programme across France, with 73% of participants subsequently attaining a job or position on an education programme.
