It has been a busy and exciting year for us at Dell Global Giving. Dell YouthConnect, a global program designed to support education and digital inclusion initiatives for underserved youth, has launched in seven countries and provided more than $8 million to educational initiatives that will impact more than 100,000 young people in Brazil, China, India, Mexico, Morocco, South Africa and the United Kingdom. France will be launched in January 2010.
This journey started in India in February 2009, where we have the largest Dell employee population outside the US. The goal was to take an educational initiative global, while keeping pace with a digital society that has changed the way people connect, communicate, learn and go about their day-to-day lives. The vision was to work with successful, local non-profits to use technology as a key to unlock the imagination and creativity young people need to thrive, succeed and unleash their unique potential. I am proud to say that we have made progress and are seeing results that are encouraging. As always, our employees are at the forefront of our success in our global giving initiatives. Their dedication and commitment to being involved from the get go, all over the world, is testimony to great passion for educating and nurturing the youth of the world. I am proud to be a part of this team.
Our latest Dell YouthConnect program has been a collaboration with UNICEF to support the Children’s Forum for Climate Change (CFCC) in Copenhagen. The CFCC ends today and was held in the run-up to the United Nations Climate Change Conference (COP15). This is a topic close to our heart. Dell recognizes that climate change is real and must be mitigated and we support efforts to reduce global emissions to levels guided by evolving science.
We provided laptops to 160 young people from 44 industrialized and developing countries so that they could participate and have a voice in the global climate change debate, as well as a chance to influence the important agreement to be decided at COP15. To ensure the laptops become a tool for lasting change, after the forum UNICEF will distribute them to specially selected young climate change activists who can continue championing young people’s views on this issue.
The planet is everyone’s responsibility and we must empower these young environment stewards to take part in both local and global efforts and fight climate change. We are proud to be a part of this educational journey and providing the tools and technology to facilitate that change.