December 16, 2021
A recognised charity for entrepreneurship education, EPA is the French branch of the century-old network, Junior Achievement Worldwide, and its European entity Junior Achievement Europe. For BNP Paribas Cardif, whose mission is making insurance more accessible, supporting EPA both financially as well as through the involvement of its employees enables it to actively participate in opening up the world of entrepreneurship to young people. This very concrete commitment to equal opportunities is fully in line with the insurer’s corporate strategy.
Ten years of strong commitment to entrepreneurship education
Collaboration takes place in the classroom: through the “Mini-Entreprise®” project, and the “Notre commune” project, over 2,000 young people have discovered and experienced entrepreneurship in a fun way with BNP Paribas Cardif employees. Over 250 of the insurer’s employees have already volunteered to play the role of mentor for a year or more, visiting classes once a month to advise them on their mini-enterprise projects, from their design right up to the actual marketing of a product, along with its administrative and financial management.
At the start of 2021, BNP Paribas Cardif also supported Junior Achievement Europe in the launch of new initiatives in Italy alongside BNP Paribas, which has supported EPA through its Foundation since 2014. BNP Paribas Cardif employees thus formed part of the 80 volunteers from the Group who have supported 783 young people, notably migrants, during over 250 hours of tutoring. BNP Paribas Cardif’s support for EPA and JA is perfectly in line with the BNP Paribas Group’s commitments to the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), the fourth of which is to “ensure inclusive and equitable quality education.” BNP Paribas Cardif places great importance on contact with young people, which allows students to discover the world of business and to plan for their professional futures.
Professional integration, a priority
In Korea, the “Dream High” project, carried out in partnership with Junior Achievement Korea, is also celebrating its tenth anniversary in 2021. Initially designed to provide financial education to children from disadvantaged backgrounds, the programme has developed to present the world of work in a concrete way to high school and university students, and, since 2020, to help young single mothers regain their financial independence.
To promote the professional integration of young Ile-de-France residents and introduce them to the company from the inside, BNP Paribas Cardif is opening the doors to its headquarters in Nanterre in several ways. First of all, by hosting them on an internship or work-study programme, from 3rd year to Master’s level. In autumn 2021, BNP Paribas Cardif participated for a second school year in the P-TECH mentoring and equal opportunities programme (“Pathways to Technology Early College High Schools”), launched in France in 2019 by IBM, BNP Paribas and Orange, in partnership with the Ministry of National Education and Youth. P-TECH enables vocational high school students to be mentored over the long term by volunteer employees from BNP Paribas Cardif, in order to give them a clear vision of current IT professions and those of the future.
