Strengthening our commitment to assist young people entering the job market
Societe Generale is combining its civic and patronage commitments to promote the integration of young people through sport and cultural activities.
Societe Generale is engaged in civil society and pursues a corporate patronage policy built around three topics: professional integration, sport and culture. Its involvement in these areas has been steady over several decades and did not waver during the economic crisis. As it continues its work in these three fields, Societe Generale is now federating them to widen its scope of action by supporting innovative initiatives in education and professional integration through sport and music. Leveraging its close ties with the associations and stakeholders in these three fields, the Group aims to develop new kinds of interaction prior to employability programmes. The shared goal of Societe Generale and its partners is to draw on the strong educational values associated with sport and culture to offer young people more support on their path to social integration.
Three major partnerships
Among the many projects backed by Societe Generale, there are three partnerships that are especially emblematic of this shared commitment: those fostered with the Sport dans la Ville association, and with the Divertimento Symphony Orchestra and the Démos project. What Sport dans la Ville, Démos and Divertimento have in common is that they offer young people ambitious educational projects that build on the poise one cultivates through playing sport or classical music. They are all firmly planted in socially challenged neighbourhoods and offer long-term assistance to young people along with a demanding vision of education, in which the practise of a sport or music is a way to push one’s boundaries. Their efforts, which promote the social integration of young people and yield tangible results, align perfectly with the values of the Societe Generale Group: team spirit, innovation, responsibility and commitment.
Call for projects for the Societe Generale Foundation
Beyond these partnerships, in late 2014 the Societe Generale Foundation issued a targeted call for projects to associations that use sport- or culture-based activities as pathways to education and employability. The call for projects generated 50 applications that will be evaluated in spring 2015 by the Foundation’s Board of Directors. In parallel, the Foundation will continue to carry out its ongoing actions to promote employability in France and the other countries where the Group operates. Employment readiness, integration workshops and initiatives, job placement agencies, literacy campaigns and so on: the Foundation favours actions that create bridges to sustainable employment in the job market. In 2014, some 102 projects of this sort were funded in France and around the world.
