Western Union PASS football campaign to fund one million school days
Howard Lake | 16 September 2012 | News
Global payment services provider Western Union is to make a donation for every successful pass in this season’s UEFA Europe League to fund one day’s education for young people around the world. Its PASS Fund aims to fund one million school days.
The campaign is fronted by former international footballer Patrick Vieira, and the donations start as the league kicks off on 20 September.
The initiative will provide teacher training and student scholarships through NGOS with an initial focus on eleven countries – Brazil, China, Colombia, Jamaica, Mexico, Morocco, Nigeria, Senegal, Romania, Russia and Turkey.
“Moving money for better is at the heart of what we do, and education is one of the main reasons our customers send money,” said Hikmet Ersek, Western Union President and CEO.
“According to UNESCO, 71 million bright, hardworking students globally are not enrolled in secondary or vocational education. It’s a tremendous loss of economic and human potential, since each extra year of school can increase an individual’s potential economic opportunity. Through PASS, we intend to harness the power of football to build awareness of this challenge as well as deliver on-the-ground support that will make a difference to young people and their communities.”
Football fans around the world will also be encouraged to add to the fund during the season through an online campaign.
PASS will run for the three years of Western Union’s sponsorship of the UEFA Europa League, until 2015.
http://wu-pass.org/
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About Howard Lake
Howard Lake is consultant editor of UK Fundraising. He founded the site in 1994 and successfully sold it in 2022. As director of Giving X Ltd he is exploring growing giving on a massive scale.
He is the founder of Fundraising Camp and co-founder of GoodJobs.