Celebrating New and Renewed Partnerships

July 25, 2022

We’re excited to announce five new partnerships and three important partnership renewals, which will build a brighter future for the next generation of innovators, entrepreneurs, and leaders.

American Express is partnering with JA Worldwide for the first time through a grant will build financial confidence and resilience in young people across at least 11 countries through the implementation of financial capability programming. The 11 JA offices will work with local American Express colleagues to select and implement financial capability programs with American Express volunteers.

A two-year global partnership with Microsoft will focus on digital skills and improving livelihoods. Digital Skills Learning for 21st-Century Livelihoods will work across five countries in the first year of the partnership, integrating at least ten hours of Microsoft digital skills content into some of JA’s most popular entrepreneurship experiences and locally developed experience to impact over 16,000 young people. Building on lessons learned from JA and Microsoft’s global work together in 2021, two new project components will be incorporated over the next two years. First, Microsoft will provide training for trainers in participating countries so they can deliver Microsoft’s digital-content learning experiences. Second, hundreds of youth will participate in employment and livelihood opportunities allowing them to put their knowledge gains into practice. We look forward to sharing the outcomes of this work in the months ahead.

A global partnership with Verizon kicked off earlier this year, which offers employee-engagement opportunities globally in 11 locations, building off a previous partnership in the United States and Ireland. Watch one example of the partnership, which is cultivating the next generation of STEM leaders: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kArHiMUVTSY

Carmeuse, a Belgian global materials and services leader—with core competencies in mining, equipment, material processing, and engineering solutions—is building on existing JA partnerships in Belgium, Thailand, and other locations and entering into a three-year partnership next month. This new partnership aims to support youth in technical and vocational education: In each location, Carmeuse collaborators and JA offices will choose the learning experiences they wish to implement locally to reach that goal. Collaborators will be able to volunteer to help younger generations learn more about their future career choices.

The third year of our partnership with Accenture renewed this month, with a project that engages more than 15 JA offices across four of our six regions. Among a number of recent projects, Accenture was instrumental in launching our Youth Voices initiative, in collaboration with Cortico and the MIT Center for Constructive Communication. Learn more at youthvoice.org.

Citi Foundation, which began its partnership with JA in 1986 and is responsible for opening well over a dozen JA offices around the world since then, renewed all of its regional and global grants this year to support JA around the world. See more about our partnership in the video, below.

We’re proud to partner for a second year with Harry Winston as part of Harry Winston Brilliant Futures Charitable Program, which supports organizations that strive to give young people a quality education and the support needed for a healthy and hopeful future.

We've invited JA staff from around the world to work in cohorts to create custom microlearning classes (called "bytes") to launch JA Worldwide's first official staff skilling opportunity under JA University. These cohorts will create bytes using Rumie, a learning platform that enables our staff to interact, create, and launch innovative learning opportunities. JA’s global staff will also earn a first-of-its-kind credential, cobranded by JA Worldwide and Rumie.

And did you hear about the US$250,000 donation from Align, the Global Innovation Challenge with Architas, and our new initiative with Goodwall?