Fondation HSBC pour l’Education

Because we believe in the need for universal education, HSBC France created the Fondation HSBC pour l’Education under the aegis of the Fondation de France.
 
The Foundation’s purpose is to support the initiatives of associations and institutions working to facilitate access to education for young people living in disadvantaged areas.
 
Chaired by Charles-Henri Filippi, Chairman of the Board of HSBC France, the Foundation provides support for a dozen or so initiatives for a period of one to three years following each call for projects. This support comes in three forms:

• Financial support: the project leaders have to justify their need and specify what they expect to receive from the Foundation.

• Human resources support: the Foundation calls on the employees of HSBC France to volunteer their time as contacts between the Foundation and the project leaders. The description of the missions given to the employees of HSBC France is a determining factor in the selection of projects.

• Media support: the Fondation HSBC pour l’Education publicizes information on the projects selected by its Executive Committee over the duration of the project.

Project selection

After a pre-selection phase carried out by the General Delegate, Marine de Bazelaire, in conjunction IMS (Institut du Mécénat Solidaire) - Entreprendre pour la Cité, the Executive Committee chooses about a dozen projects which will receive support from the Foundation.
The Committee also decides what the theme will be for the call for projects each year.
 
Chaired by Charles-Henri Filippi, Chairman of the Board of HSBC France, the Committee is made up of:

• representatives of HSBC France:
- Patrick Doreau, Deputy Head of the Aquitaine Sud Delegation
- Jean-François Halouze Lamy, Deputy Head of Human Resources
- Chantal Nedjib, Head of Communications

• qualified individuals:
- Michèle Brian, a child psychiatrist at a medical and psychological centre in Essonne, and a public health physician
- Jérôme Clément, Chairman of ARTE
- Mara Goyet, a professor of History at a middle school in St Ouen and writer ("Collège de France", Editions Folio Document)   
- Christine Juppé-Leblond, an Inspector General in the national education system – art education sector.

2007 call for projects : projects supported after the second call for projects of the Fondation HSBC pour l’Education

For the second year running, 14 projects were selected by the Fondation HSBC pour l'Education, committed to supporting initiatives led by non-profit organizations or institutions aimed at facilitating access to education for young people from underprivileged backgrounds. Following this second call for projects, more than 150 projects were received and examined.

For its 2007 call for projects, the Executive Committee has chosen to continue its support for culture as a means of facilitating access to education. It has narrowed its field of action by focusing specifically on projects aimed at children and young adolescents that call for genuine involvement on the part of parents or mentors.

This decision was based on the idea that access to culture from a very young age facilitates development of life skills, personal growth and self-esteem, with an even greater degree of success if initiatives are carried out jointly with the participation of parents, educational workers and non-profit organisation volunteers. Development of these skills and aptitudes facilitate children's access to education and should also contribute to greater integration.

Participation criteria:

· The aim of the projects should strictly be in accordance with the 2007 call for projects : facilitate access to education for young people from underprivileged backgrounds. “The access to culture” under its double aspect “artistic practice” and “sensibilisation to culture”.
· The projects should be led by non-profit organizations or institutions.
· The beneficiaries should reside in metropolitan France.
· The financial or voluntary support of the Fondation HSBC has to be significant to pursue the project.
· The foundation does not support political or confessional organizations, in accordance with the Group’s policy and the Fondation de France.

Selection criteria:

· The project has to be aimed at young people under the age of 13 years.
· Target features:
- difficult urban zone, problem neighbourhoods, rural areas…
- family / school issues
- disabilities, sickness…
· Human resources: human support should be clearly requested from the foundation
· Funding: the project budget should be sustainable
· Involvement on the part of parents and mentors: the project should provide family and/ or social cohesion, a requirement to the child development

Projects supported after the second call for projects of the Fondation HSBC pour l’Education

For the second year running, 14 projects were selected by the Fondation HSBC pour l'Education, committed to supporting initiatives led by non-profit organizations or institutions aimed at facilitating access to education for young people from underprivileged backgrounds. Following this second call for projects, more than 150 projects were received and examined.

Click on the title of the project to read the detailed description:

• The arts in time: Accepting others with all their differences  - ARTAN (Paris)
  
• Culture to make sense of the world, open up your mind and connect with your history - ASMAE (Paris)
  
• Using culture to build your relationship with the world   - Atout Lire (Airaines – 80)
  
• The universal book to encourage interactive reading  - ABBE (Paris)
  
• An orchestra at junior secondary school  - Collège Victor Hugo (Bourges)
  
• Children's theatre  - Compagnie Tamérantong! (Paris)
  
• Seen from the outside, seen from the inside, 18th, 19th & 20th arrondissements  - Ethnologues en herbe! (Paris)
  
• Children and the performing arts - La Source (La Guéroulde – 27)
  
• Where big kids read with little kids - Lis avec moi, ADNSEA  (Lille -59)
  
• A film with a thousand and one colours - Mille et une couleurs (Castanet Tolosan - 31)
  
• Creation of a theatre workshop  - Mission Possible (Paris)
  
• Roma onstage  - Parada France (Paris)
  
• La Maison de la Créativité (The Creativity House)  - TRACES  (Paris)
  
• Discovering the world under the talking tree - Zef’Cie (Paris)
  

Projects sponsored following the Foundation’s first call for projects in 2006

The Fondation HSBC pour l’Education, of which the goal is to facilitate the access to education for young people from disadvantaged areas, selected 19 winning projects chosen from its first call for proposals. The theme of this first call for projects is culture as a way of facilitating access to education for young people from underprivileged areas. More than 300 projects were examined.

Click on the title of the project to read the detailed description.

• "Adolescence, images et rencontres : portrait au travail"*, a filmmaking project on the theme of the workplace, initiated by the Questions de Regard association in Montreuil (93);
• "Atelier pédagogique de fabrication de steel drum et de pratique musicale autour du steel drum"*, a project on the making and music of steel drums, initiated by the Plur’hearts association in Neuilly sur Marne (93);
• "Bus Théâtre", a "theatre bus" project initiated by the AMIN association in Viry Chatillon (91);
• "Chemins de savoirs "*, a "pathways of knowledge" project initiated by the Collège Pierre Sémard in Bobigny (93);
• "Une classe théâtre avec des enfants en situation de handicap et/ou en échec scolaire"*, a theatre class project for children with disabilities or struggling in school, initiated by the St Germain Lembron public school (63);
• "La cour des arts ", an arts workshop project initiated by the Jean Vilar municipal theatre in Montpellier (34);
• "La déroute", an artistic project solliciting neighbourhood participation, initiated by the Entrez sans frapper association in Toulouse (31);
• "Diapason, programme de réussite éducative"*, a project promoting success in school through the arts, initiated by the Artistes Créateurs en Mouvement association, in conjunction with the Lycée Jean Lurçat (Paris, 20th arrondissement);
• "Dix mois d’École et d’Opéra, Ile de France ", the "ten months of school and opera" project initiated by the Opéra National de Paris, (Paris, 12th arrondissement);
• "T’es qui dis, t’es d’où ?"*, the "who are you and where are you from?" project initiated by the Les Serruriers Magiques association (Paris, 18th arrondissement);
• "Guédelon, chantier médiéval", the mediaevel castle-building project, initiated by the Lycée Professionnel Lafayette in Hericy (77) ;
• "Imag’Essonne"*, the short-filmmaking project initiated by the Union départementale des MJC de l’Essonne (91); 
• "Intégration des enfants défavorisés par la musique"*, a project aimed at integrating disadvantaged children through the musical arts, initiated by the Les Petits Riens association (Paris, 19th arrondissement);
• "Kiosque à musique de Vichy", the "Vichy music kiosk" project initiated by the Academic Delegation for Cultural Initiatives of the Rectorate of Clermont-Ferrand (63);
• "Des Hauts de Seine au Pôle Nord"* the "Hauts de Seine at the North Pole" project, initiated by the Nature et Aventure association in Asnières (92);
• "Projet du Rhin", the "Rhin project", initiated by the Collège Jean Macé in Mulhouse (68);
• "Réalisation de courts-métrages de fiction" a fictional short filmmaking project initiated by the Tribudom association (Paris, 2nd arrondissement);
• "Visites au musée et musée revisité par des jeunes en situation de handicap moteur"* a project aimed at bringing motor disabled children on museum visits, initiated by the Établissement Jean Monnet in Garches (92);
• "Zellidja, une opportunité étendue à tous les jeunes"* a project offering scholarships for cultural studies in France and abroad, initiated by the Fondation Zellidja (Paris, 11th arrondissement).

* support repeated in 2007

2006 – 2007 evaluation of the Fondation HSBC pour l’Education

In June 2006, following its first call for projects, the Fondation HSBC pour l’Education selected 19 non-profit organizations and institutions that use culture as a way of facilitating access to education for young people from disadvantaged backgrounds.

One year later, more than 800 children and adolescents have benefited from the support – funding, human resources and media coverage – of the Foundation. This support is aimed specifically at achieving two goals:
 
enabling these young people to discover the world around them, structure their personalities and (re)discover a taste for learning

raising employee awareness of and encouraging their involvement in the projects selected with the aim of exposing them to new experiences and new ways of working while bringing into play, wherever possible, complementarities and exchanges of views with other talented young people supported by HSBC France

For this 1st year, 22 employees volunteered to work with the organisations supported by the Fondation HSBC pour l’Education, through one of the 26 missions posted on the Group's intranet. These missions are extremely varied, ranging from accompanying young people on outings, assistance with the search for funding and presenting the bank's activities to help in creating websites, for instance.

The year was marked by a number of events and encounters:

Developing access to culture for young people with physical disabilities is the goal of the Etablissement Régional d’Enseignement Adapté Jean Monnet de Garches. The students of this institution undertook an assignment in the centre of Paris consisting of an in-depth study of access to the Maison de Victor Hugo. Their work was useful in highlighting the museum's collections and the author's work but also of interest to the management of the museum, which is keen to improve its accessibility. As a spin-off from this initiative, the same students visited two HSBC agencies in the Paris Region to identify the strengths and weaknesses of public access to these two agencies.

HSBC employees produced the DVD case and invitation cards for projection of the documentary film produced for the "Adolescence, images and encounters: portrait at work" project organised by Questions de Regard, with 130 junior and senior secondary students and young inmates of the Fleury Mérogis prison, many of whom are school drop-outs with social integration difficulties.

Around an afternoon snack organised and shared in the reception rooms of the bank's Champs Elysées headquarters, HSBC teams met 10 children enrolled in the CLIS (special integration class) at the St Germain Lembron school in a small village near Clermont-Ferrand. These children, who are mentally disabled and mostly from underprivileged backgrounds, were given an opportunity to acquire greater confidence in themselves through theatre and the opportunity to discover a world of culture hitherto unknown to them, thanks to a five-day programme of visits in Paris.

A musical comedy, "T’es qui dis, t’es d’où?", written and acted by 33 children aged from 8 to 16 living in the Belleville and Château Rouge neighbourhoods in Paris was performed 8 times during the 2006-2007 school year at the Théâtre Ménilmontant, rented with the support of the Foundation. Many HSBC employees attended this very moving and high-quality show, which tackles two questions that crop up all the time when you are new, not from here, different, a foreigner: "So, who are you? Where do you come from? – two questions that revolve around the subject of identity, a delicate subject in today's international context but also in the school playground!

Six students from the Pierre Sémard de Bobigny junior secondary school were received at HSBC France head office for their final-year internship. Over one week, the six students had the opportunity to discover the world of work and, more specifically, the world of banking. During the internship, one of the students reaffirmed her desire to continue with accounting studies after spending time with "equities" accounting teams.
The 319 students at the junior secondary participate in the school's "Chemins de savoirs" (paths of knowledge) educational initiative, a learning method that integrates culture (artistic creation, corporal expression, voice and words) into the traditional academic programme by adapting teaching techniques (set hours and subjects versus projects and group work) to help each student rediscover a taste for and the pleasure of learning.

Some 22 non-French-speaking new immigrants with difficulties in social and cultural integration from the Elsa Triolet junior secondary school in Champigny sur Marne participated in the academic success programme Diapason, supported by non-profit organisation Artistes Créateurs en Mouvement. This project consists of a school support programme based on using the arts and culture as a vehicle for learning. The students will be happy and proud to see their photos exhibited in the HSBC's Champigny agency near their school. An HSBC employee is currently helping the organisation organise media coverage of its actions. Finally, the Executive Director of the Fondation HSBC pour la Photographie, accompanied by Laurence Leblanc, photographer and a former Foundation prize-winner, will take advantage of a presentation of the students' photographic output in their school to meet with the young people and talk with them about their work.

On the occasion of the annual music festival (fête de la Musique), HSBC France invited and accompanied 17 students from the Pierre Sémard junior secondary school and 10 students enrolled in the Diapason programme in Lyon to attend the concert given by the prize-winners of the Aix-en-Provence Festival European Musical Academy supported by HSBC.

The non-profit organisation "Les Petits Riens", which focuses exclusively on helping children from disadvantaged neighbourhoods in the 19th arrondissement of Paris discover the richness of our cultures through access to music, needed to develop its website as a way of sharing its enthusiasm with as many people as possible. Two HSBC employees with complementary skills in graphics and programming volunteered to help. The website, a genuine team project, will come online in September 2007.
Introducing the different jobs in banking: this is the mission undertaken by five HSBC France employees working with junior secondary students in Paris and the Paris Region, who, after having discovered the "100 jobs in opera" with the "ten months of school and opera" programme, were introduced to the world of finance through presentations of banking jobs by employees and visits to some specific places such as the trading room, for example.

The appeal made to HSBC employees did not fall on deaf ears – today, dozens of employees are happy to contribute their skills, energy and time to the projects supported by the Fondation HSBC pour l’Education. HSBC France, which sees this kind of commitment as vital to personal and professional development, supports its employee volunteers by compensating for the free time they devote to this activity by allowing them to take several half-days off work in exchange, where warranted by the mission.

Inspired by this first experience, when selecting initiatives in the second call for projects, the Executive Committee took care to choose organisations and institutions whose projects provide opportunities for involvement on the part of HSBC France employees.

This involvement can also be seen through the support given by HSBC France to Institut d'Etudes Politiques (Sciences Po) students who have gained admittance to the elite college through the special procedure targeting high schools in Priority Education Zones. The Fondation HSBC pour l'Education finances some 20 housing bursaries every year.
As part of this project, some 18 HSBC France executives have each agreed to mentor a student benefiting from one of these bursaries. Through this initiative, launched in 2005 for a five-year period, the mentor works closely with his or her protégé on implementing their professional objectives. These encounters between people from different generations and backgrounds, help open doors to tolerance.