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Vodafone helps to support disadvantaged families

Thanks to Vodafone Foundation and the World of Difference (“Rok jinak”) project it is possible to support also talented children from socially disadvantaged families in Brno and its surroundings

Vodafone Czech Republic Foundation is an independent, state-registered, non-profit organization established by Vodafone Czech Republic a.s. The Foundation launched its activities in the Czech Republic in 2006 and during six years of its existence it has supported socially beneficial activities with more than Czech crowns 100 million. The Foundation’s activities aim at three basic directions, and one of them is development and capacity building and know-how of Czech non-profit organizations. The Foundation has been reaching this goal through its grant programme called Year in a Different Way which supports those professionals who want to help and show that the know-how and experience from the commercial sector can help the non-profit organizations.

Within the scope of the Year in a Different Way project for the year 2012, the Vodafone CZ Foundation supported, by engagement of a representative of the commercial sector, IQ Roma servis, which is an association in Brno providing comprehensive educational and social services to socially disadvantaged people, primarily Roma people. IQ Roma servis is a popular organization sought after by both clients and the public administration, non-profit organizations, schools, students and employers, not only in the South Moravian region, but throughout the Czech Republic and EU. In 2011, IQ Roma servis responded to the project funding which does not provide sufficient opportunities of direct financial assistance in specific situations of clients, and in March 2012, based on its long-term work with clients, set up its own charitable and scholarship programme of an individual support to selected clients, mostly young Roma people, which is called Gendalos Fund (Mirror Fund) and Vodafone CZ Foundation supports this programme thanks to its Year in A Different Way project.

Gendalos charity and scholarship programme directly supports young people at the age from 10 to 26 years who obtain financial support for school equipment and for the fee related to studies and tuition at secondary school and universities. The programme also supports educational activities developing children skills, exchange stays, scholarships and inclusive leisure time activities which enable the children the inclusion into usual social life. The basic requirement of the support is active long-term cooperation of the child and his/her family with IQ Roma servis based on an individual plan which is jointly created and confirmed. The supported people are chosen individually based on their request evaluated by key IQ Roma servis workers who have been cooperating with their clients for a long time.

Continuously divided resources of the fund are created from contributions of individual and corporate donors, together with free resources of IQ Roma servis. For this purpose IQ Roma servis has opened a separate transparent account number 6 500 413 001 / 5500 to which donors may continuously send funds. The donors are provided with the information on the processing of financial and non-financial donations and on the development of individual cases and, at the same time, have available the official websites of the programme at www.gendalos.cz.