Verizon Foundation Partners With Passeport Avenir In France To Help Underserved Students Pursue Higher Education

PARIS LA DEFENSE, France, Nov. 25, 2013 /PRNewswire/ -- Verizon through its Foundation has joined Passeport Avenir's partner network program to mentor its students, helping and encouraging them to pursue higher education. Passeport Avenir is a French nonprofit organization supporting young people from underprivileged neighborhoods until they graduate from an institution of higher education.

Verizon's employees in France will volunteer and provide mentorship to help the students of Passeport Avenir in their academic careers. Additionally, employees will share with students information on their profession, career path, job responsibilities and role within Verizon.

"Passeport Avenir's program is perfectly aligned with the Verizon Foundation's education strategy of enabling vulnerable students to have access to higher education," said Justina Nixon-Saintil, director of education and technology programs for the Verizon Foundation. "This partnership is another way in which we're sharing our success with communities to make our world a better place."

Benjamin Blavier, managing director of Passeport Avenir, said, "We warmly welcome the Verizon Foundation to the Passeport Avenir network. By broadening our partners, we are allowing a greater number of students to benefit from the Passeport Avenir program."

Verizon's support will serve more than 4,200 students in Passeport Avenir's program in La Defense.

Other partner members of Passeport Avenir include: Accenture, Airbus, Air France, Alcatel-Lucent, Atos, Capgemini, Ericsson, France Medias Monde, Gemalto, Malakoff, Mederic, Orange, Qualcomm, Sagemcom, SFR, SNCF and TF1. Each company funds the project and involves its employees in mentoring initiatives, group workshops, and job-shadowing programs.

About Passeport Avenir
Passeport Avenir is a partnership for equal opportunities between higher education institutions and the working world. The Passeport Avenir association was created in 2005 in response to an observable truth: that due to social, geographic or cultural determinism, young people from low-income areas are under-represented in elite business and engineering schools, and on paths towards academic excellence.

Companies can play a decisive role by contributing to equal opportunities, from school level, and encouraging talent diversity. Passeport Avenir coordinates 17 companies to develop a support system of corporate volunteers who provide mentoring, workshops and practical assistance for the pupils and students of 120 education institutions (high schools, preparatory classes, graduate schools and universities). Through our actions, we endeavour to create a community of success composed of young people who, at the very top of organisations, can be examples of social advancement and diversity.

Every year, more than 4,300 young people from low-income areas benefit from the assistance of 1,200 Passeport Avenir volunteers. The association is supported by the French Ministry of National Education, the Ministry of Higher Education and Research, and the Ministry of Urban Affairs.  For more information visit http://passeport-avenir.com/.

About the Verizon Foundation
The Verizon Foundation is focused on accelerating social change by using the company's innovative technology to help solve pressing problems in education, healthcare and energy management. Since 2000, the Verizon Foundation has invested more than half a billion dollars to improve the communities where Verizon employees work and live. Verizon's employees are generous with their donations and their time, having logged more than 6.8 million hours of service to make a positive difference in their communities. For more information about Verizon's philanthropic work, visit www.verizonfoundation.org; or for regular updates, visit the Foundation on Facebook (www.facebook.com/verizonfoundation) and Twitter (www.twitter.com/verizongiving).

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SOURCE Passeport Avenir