Youth and education
Education and knowledge are prerequisites for leading a secure and independent life and for maintaining our livelihood. The Munich Re Group helps children and young people who do not have adequate access to these resources.
Investing in youth has a future: The Hamburg-Mannheimer foundation "Jugend & Zukunft"
The Hamburg-Mannheimer foundation "Jugend & Zukunft" has one primary goal for young people: giving them prospects of a secure and independent future. With its activities, it promotes youth care and youth welfare. This includes qualified care and support for socially disadvantaged youth in the form of education and training opportunities, preparation for professional life and help with the job search, sports and game tournaments, youth exchange programmes as well as art training programmes. In addition to this, the foundation also supports other tax-exempt bodies and public bodies.
In 2006 the foundation awarded the Nationaler Förderpreis (promotion prize) for the first time, a total endowment of €100,000. In the year of the FIFA World Cup, it adopted the motto "Fußball bewegt" ("Football moves") and using football as a medium, addressed itself to projects that promote children’s and young people’s development. Three main prizes totalling €50,000 and twenty recognition prizes of €2,500 each were awarded to the nominated projects.
Through the project "Job Locomotive", which the foundation had launched in different regions in Germany in 1999/2000, several hundred young people found training opportunities and jobs – and a positive future. The state of Hamburg acknowledged the project by giving it the "Deutscher Förderpreis Jugend in Arbeit" (national award for youth and work).
Europäische Reiseversicherung (ERV – European Travel Insurance) – Help for children
Since 2001, Europäische Reiseversicherung has been committed to social projects throughout the world. The emphasis is on help for children in need. From 2001 to 2003, aid projects in Colombia (assistance for Gaminés, Bogotá) and South Africa (Children's Resource Center (CRC), Capetown) were given financial and non-material support. In 2004, Europäische Reiseversicherung donated a laboratory to the social and environment project Salve Floresta e.V. in Brazil. It was set up at Salve Floresta e.V. the following year. Local children come here to broaden their understanding of the country’s flora and learn how to produce simple natural cures during their stays at the school recreation camp.
The social commitment of Europäische Reiseversicherung AG was preceded by a ten-year environmental commitment which began in 1991 with a project to protect giant turtles in Turkey that were threatened by extinction and ended in 2000 with the project to protect the blue-masked amazon, a threatened parrot species found on St. Lucia. The support of Europäische Reiseversicherung made it possible to save numerous animal and plant species from adverse effects of worldwide tourism.