How the UCB Community Health Fund is making a difference in the lives of vulnerable young people?

Through its Community Health Fund, UCB supports vulnerable young people across the globe. In 2022, the Fund accepted new grant requests from non-profit and non-governmental organizations that had projects and work in place to help people between the ages of 15 - 24 with mental health disorders or young people who have been displaced due to conflict situations.

Indeed, the need has probably never been greater. While the global pandemic and different crises have affected us all deeply, analysis tells us that adolescents and young people have been particularly affected. Family stress and social isolation only exacerbated their emotional difficulties. In addition to the fear of the virus and the deep uncertainty brought about by misinformation, many face economic insecurity.

Just like the two previous calls for projects in 2020 and 2021, our 3rd call for projects, that closed in June 2022, had a phenomenal response. The UCB Community Health Fund received 144 applications and will donate over € 2 million to 44 non-profit associations to help people in need. These include organizations in countries such as Switzerland, Japan, the US, Belgium, etc. Each association will receive between €10,000 – €50,000.

"The Community Health Fund supported over 140 projects since 2020, and we are so happy that we have been able to help young people around the world,” said Xavier Hormaechea, Secretary General of the UCB Community Health Fund, “the associations that we're partnering with are so inspiring and they are able to make a real, positive impact in the field of mental health."

One of this year's beneficiaries is the C5 Georgia Youth Foundation (Georgia, USA), an organisation that helps high potential teens in under resourced communities pursue personal success. "We are so grateful to receive a grant from the UCB Health Fund to support the teens of C5 Georgia for our mental health initiatives. As many know, so much research has been done on the struggles that teens are dealing with in regard to the impact of Covid 19, especially for teens from under-resourced communities.  From lost time of learning to the anxiety of a post quarantine world, we recognize that supporting our teens is needed more than ever. This grant will provide additional resources needed for our programs." – Jackie Cannizzo, Executive Director at C5 Georgia Youth Foundation.

Our grants are reaching organizations and projects around the world, you can find a full overview of the 2023 Community Health Fund organizations here.

Watch this space as in the spring this year we will launch our next call for projects.

For more information about the Community Health Fund, check out this page.