Starbucks and International Youth Foundation launch program for young social innovators in Jordan

Press release

Published July 22nd, 2012 - 07:44 GMT

During the launching

Starbucks and the International Youth Foundation (IYF) have launched “Badir”, a three-year program designed to equip young Jordanians with the knowledge and skills needed to strengthen and scale up their social change projects.

Badir, which is Arabic for “Take the Initiative”, was developed by IYF and is fully funded by Starbucks, which operates in Jordan through a licensing agreement with M.H. Alshaya Co.

The program was officially launched in a special ceremony on June 13 at the Dar Al Anda Art Gallery in Jebel Al Weibdeh.

Badir will be creating a national network of leaders aged 18 to 30 who have successfully implemented social change projects. The program will provide them with social innovation skills and management training to help them strengthen and expand their projects.

An innovation fund of the program will provide a monetary grant of up to USD5,000 to participants who complete the first training workshop and successfully apply to the fund.

Rana Shaheen, regional communications and CSR manager of Starbucks Coffee MENA, said: “Working closely with the International Youth Foundation, we chose to focus on social entrepreneurship as a means to empower the next generation of community leaders. Badir will take the aspirations and hard work of civic-minded Jordanian young men and women and provide them with the tools they need to think even bigger.”

In 2008, Starbucks teamed up with IYF to support youth programs in other countries, it is now looking forward to doing the same in Jordan through Badir, Shaheen added.

“It is a great pleasure to launch the Badir program with a respected and dedicated partner like Starbucks”, said Rana Turk, Jordan’s country director for IYF. “The involvement of private sector institutions in initiatives like Badir is a critical component of success, and our longstanding global partnership with Starbucks is a model example.

The Badir program complements our existing activities in Jordan, which focus on youth leadership development and youth economic empowerment.”

Background Information

Starbucks Coffee Company

Since 1971, Starbucks Coffee Company has been committed to ethically sourcing and roasting the highest quality coffee in the world. Today, with stores around the globe, the company is the premier roaster and retailer of specialty coffee in the world.

As the premier vendor of the finest coffee, Starbucks is focused on delivering the best experience to every customer at each of its locations around the world, including Kuwait, KSA, UAE, Egypt, Lebanon, Jordan, Qatar, Bahrain & Oman in the Middle East region

Starcbucks work with many communities, and is committed to providing the Starbucks Experience while respecting the local customs and tastes of each country it operates in. It is also committed to hiring locally, currently providing nearly 2700 jobs for more than 30 nationalities including Arab nationals in over 300 operating stores in the region.

Starbucks stores have been operating in the Middle East since 1999 through a licensing agreement with trading partner and licensee MH Alshaya WLL, a private Kuwait family business.