Nokia and the International Youth Foundation (IYF) celebrated the five-year anniversary of their global youth development initiative — Make a Connection — with the addition of the Netherlands as the 20th country joining the programme. This new addition brings the company’s total financial commitment to the programme to close to $23 M globally to date.
Since April 2000, Make a Connection has directly benefited more than 180,000 participating youth worldwide and indirectly another 1.8 million people in the communities where these young people live. Both organizations contribute their respective core competencies. IYF, the world’s largest network of youth-serving organizations with local affiliates in close to 70 countries and territories, focuses on program design, monitoring and impact assessment, while Nokia provides funding, staff volunteers and community relations support for the programme in each country.