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Society Switzerland25. December 2019

Big Brands Pledge to Spend Quarter of a Billion to Help Refugees

Major companies – Ikea, Vodafone and Lego, to name a few – have altogether pledged a quarter of a billion dollars towards jobs and education for refugees, to support some of the millions of individuals forced to flee their homes.

The pledges came just ahead of this month’s Global Refugee Forum hosted by the United Nations refugee agency, in a mission to help refugees become more self-sufficient.

The Vodafone Foundation plans to expand its digital education program – which provides online teaching tools east Africa’s refugee camps – to reach 500,000 young refugees by 2025. The Lego Foundation pledged $100 million toward fun learning tools for displaced children in Africa in cooperation with a U.S.-based charity. And Swedish furniture retailer Ikea has pledged a five-year commitment of around $111.5 million to support 2,500 refugees through job and language training in 30 countries by 2022.

“I think we owe the refugees today to make sure that the narrative throughout the whole world becomes a positive narrative. It is good business to do good,” says Tolga Oncu, retail manager at Ingka which owns most of Ikea’s stores. “We at Ikea have the good fortune to think in generations, so we are super willing to invest in making sure that this narrative can change, even if it takes time.”

Source:
Thomson Reuters Foundation

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