The ArcelorMittal Foundation offers mini-grants to fund projects in which employees are actively involved
With mini-grants, we support employees in their individual volunteering initiatives. We offer to make a financial contribution to a community project in which an employee is actively involved and which shows the promise of making a real difference to community life.
Employees can apply for a maximum of US$5,000 for a mini-grant that promotes education, health or community development, which are the three focus areas for the ArcelorMittal Foundation.
“The mini-grants initiative is a wonderful way of making the ArcelorMittal employees an inherent part of the Foundation and to contribute with them to achieve something real their NGO might need at a given moment. We want to solve concrete problems to improve everyone’s reality.”
Felicidad Cristobal, CEO, ArcelorMittal Foundation
The Foundation launched the mini-grants globally in June 2011, following the success of pilo projects involving employees in Belgium, the Czech Republic and Luxembourg. In December 2011, 73 NGOs from 17 countries received financial support and in 2012, 85 NGOs from 20 different countries were selected to receive a mini- grant.
In Ostrava, Czech Republic, we supported 45 projects in 2010, which ranged from volunteering with children with hearing impairments at a local kindergarten and supporting a school for children with special needs, to providing sports equipment for summer school camps.
The mini-grant projects selected in Luxembourg promote children’s education. We support Children’s Corner, an organisation started by one of our employees to promote sign language and awareness of trisomy, which is a chromosomal disorder.
Employees in Luxembourg have also chosen to support children’s education in other parts of the world. For example, our mini-grant to Enfant de l’Espoir (French for ‘child of hope’) supports a programme for education, nutrition and health of children in Colombia. We support Femmes Dévéloppement (French for ‘women’s development’), an organisation that is building a children’s village for orphans in Rwanda. Through Mitica, we promote the inclusion and education of gypsy children in the village of Priluzje, Kosovo.