Building on their long-term commitment to youth education and development, The HEAD Foundation and JUMP! Foundation (JUMP!) launched a strategic partnership in 2017 to support underserved youth in Cambodia, Indonesia, Myanmar and Thailand.
The Foundation and JUMP!, a global non-profit social enterprise focused on experiential education, will work together over a 12-month period from April 2017 to March 2018 to implement programmes for underserved youth. The aim of the programme is to support youth to identify challenges in their community, and provide them with the necessary skills and tools to design and implement solutions to solve them.
“The HEAD Foundation believes in the power of education and we support the development of human capital through education. Geographically, we focus on the development of Asia, especially the less developed communities in Southeast Asia. JUMP! Foundation has both the experience and the right resources to deliver the sustainable impact we look for, and we are glad to collaborate with them to groom and inspire more young community leaders,” said Mr. Yu-Book Lim, Managing Director of The HEAD Foundation.
The JUMP! Development Programs will train youth in innovation and entrepreneurship through leadership conferences. Social issues relevant to the United Nation’s Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) — a set of goals set by governments to end poverty, protect the planet and ensure prosperity for all over the next 15 years — will also be tackled in the conferences. “Many youth from underserved communities have the passion and motivation to create solutions to local, regional and global issues. However, they lack access to opportunities and resources to do so. Our goals is to inspire, empower and engage youth by connecting them to opportunities and resources,” said JUMP! Executive Director Justin Bedard. Each programme is designed and organised in partnership with local NGOs to ensure their sustainability. “Our focus is to adapt programmes to the local context. We do this by co-organising programmes with local NGOs, and this allows for us to have a sustainable impact on the communities we work with,” added Bedard. The Foundation has committed to partnering with JUMP! to run the conferences in Phnom Penh (Cambodia), Yogyakarta (Indonesia), Yangon (Myanmar) and Chiang Mai (Thailand). The conferences are expected to benefit over 200 local youth. The HEAD Foundation’s grant will also provide small seed funds for selected conference participants to implement development projects in their communities.Many youth from underserved communities have the passion and motivation to create solutions to local, regional and global issues. However, they lack access to opportunities and resources to do so.
