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ENCOURAGING FUTURE CITIZENS

Every day, the Group seeks to promote access to education and culture for all, and to encourage a multicultural dialogue.

Women's Forum 

The representative of El Camino receiving the Women for Eduction award in 2009

The Renault-Nissan Alliance has always supported the Women’s Forum that took place for the fourth time in Deauville in October 2009.

 

Carlos Ghosn has presented the Women for Education award for the third year running. Set up by the Elle Foundation and supported by the Renault-Nissan Alliance, the awards finance projects that promote the development of women worldwide through education, training, or business creation.

 

In 2009, two projects received the award ex-aequo: the Mexican NGO El Camino (training of weavers) and the Ethiopian NGO Accueil Enfants d'Ethiopie (vocational training for young mothers). Carlos Ghosn, President of the Renault-Nissan Alliance declared: On behalf of the 350,000 people who work for the Renault-Nissan Alliance, I am proud to support these projects which will help women in Ethopia and Mexico to develop the skills they need to lead successful and fulfilling lives.

 

This initiative is part of a broader policy put in place by the Renault-Nissan Alliance, to develop training and promote diversity within the companies and, more generally, in social and economic life.

The Valued Citizens program (South Africa) 

Since 2001, Renault has been the key partner in the “Valued Citizens” program in South Africa. Organized in state schools, this initiative seeks to promote responsible citizenship. The aim is to create a culture based on the values and principles enshrined in the South African Constitution.

 

Valued Citizens has four precise ambitions:

 

  • create a school environment that will favour children's development,
  • focus on civic education and critical thinking, while teaching children self-esteem and respect for others,
  • prevent crime and violence,
  • create jobs by encouraging some young people to become citizenship educators.

 

A total of 400,000 pupils and 3,350 educators and head teachers have taken part in this program since it was first set up. In the space of seven years, it has been rolled out in 2,385 primary and secondary schools, in urban and rural areas as well as in ghettos.

Helping low-skilled young people (France) 

Renault has always sought to promote the professional insertion of low-skilled young people. In the early 1990s, the Group signed a framework agreement that has since been renewed four times. This agreement creates a training course through which young people can follow an internship in industry as part of a work/study contract and receive assistance in finding a job. On completing the course, the young people receive an official multidisciplinary diploma: a  vocational certificate in the operation of industrial systems.

 

Implemented in six Group plants in France, this program has been extended to the employment areas around the plants, with the help of local institutions.

 

The Renault program for the insertion of young people

  

  • more than 2,600 young people have followed the program, of whom one-quarter were women
  • 80% finished the course with a diploma
  • 70% are working

The Renault Foundation 

Set up in March 2001, the Renault Foundation welcomes and trains foreign students from prestigious universities. It pays for their stay in France and for the training programs. Its role is to promote multicultural management and to enable high-flying students to become managers of international companies.

 

The Renault Foundation has welcomed 370 students of different nationalities since it was founded. It consolidates the links forged between Renault and universities, and builds closer ties between France and countries where the Group has strong presence. In 2007, the budget assigned to this mission totalled €2.7 million.

 

The Renault Foundation has set up partnerships with the most reputed institutes of higher education. In France, it has put in place innovative training programs in partnership with the universities of:

 

  • Paris Dauphine and the University of Paris I Panthéon-Sorbonne's corporate management institute (IAE), 
  • Paris I Panthéon Sorbonne,
  • HEC Ecole des Hautes études commerciales (Paris School of Management),
  • and the engineering schools of ParisTech, including Ecole Polytechnique, Ecole des Ponts ParisTech, and Ecole des Mines ParisTech.

In 2007, in partnership with two leading French schools, Polytechnique and HEC, Renault endowed a chair in “Multicultural Management and Corporate Performance”. The aim of this program, which is financed by Renault, is to train future managers of international companies to use managerial practices geared to economic realities and to all types of cultural diversity: national, professional and organizational.

 

The work of the Renault Foundation is continued by the most prestigious universities in the countries where Renault is present:

 

  • 13 in Japan, including Tokyo, Kyoto, Osaka and Tohoku;
  • in Brazil, the Escola Politechnica of Sao Paulo University,
  • in Korea, the universities of Kaist (Korean Advanced Institute of Science and Technology), Postech (Pohang University of Science and Technology) and SNU (Seoul National University),
  • in India, the IITM (Indian Institute of Technology of Madras) in Chennai,
  • in Iran, the University of Tehran,
  • in Morocco, the engineering school Ecole Mohammadia d’Ingénieurs,
  • in Russia, the Bauman Moscow State Technical University,
  • in Romania, the Polytechnic University of Bucarest.