BBVA - Press Room

• BBVA’s benefit race (called the ‘Carrera Popular Solidaria BBVA’ in Spanish) will be held on November 2 in Madrid, and the bank's employees and customers, as well as the public at large, are invited. Those who do not wish to run can still participate by contributing a fee
• The registration fee is €4, and BBVA will match the total amount raised
• If the total is less than €50,000, BBVA will make up the difference to reach that amount
• BBVA is signing a three-year agreement with the UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR), in which it undertakes to finance the primary education of a group of child refugees in Dadaab, Kenya
• The Madrid town council is actively helping organize BBVA’s benefit race, as is Jesús Vázquez, UNHCR Ambassador and the face of the event

BBVA and UNHCR have signed a three-year cooperation agreement, in which BBVA undertakes to finance the primary education of a group of child refugees in Dadaab, Kenya. For this reason, BBVA is inviting its employees, customers and the public at large to participate in a benefit race by contributing a fee of €4. BBVA will match the amount raised from the fees, and the total is less than €50,000, the bank will make up the difference.

During the presentation of the race, Ángel Cano, head of BBVA’s Human Resources, IT and Operations Department, said that the bank is firmly committed to education through social action and corporate volunteering, as evidenced by the €69 million contributed by the bank to this type of actions in 2007.

For example, the BBVA Integration Scholarships Program provides scholarships to 28,000 children in Latin America. “Our education program has focused on the neediest, and we want this commitment to continue and be reinforced with a charity element involving all our stakeholder groups: employees, customers, shareholders, and society at large," stated Ángel Cano.

Hence, with the signing of the agreement with the UNHCR, which will remain in effect for the coming three years, BBVA undertakes to finance the primary education of a group of child refugees in Dadaab, Kenya. The refugees live in three camps —Ifo, Hagadera and Dagahaley— run by UNHCR.
 
BBVA benefit race

The BBVA benefit race, to be held in Madrid at 9:30 a.m., November 2, is open to all bank employees, customers and the public at large.

Persons interested in participating may register online at the Carreras webpage (www.carrerapopularbbva.com). All participants will receive a race kit, consisting of a specially designed T-shirt and sweatband.

There will be a single category for children, while men and women participants will be divided into the Junior, Senior, Veterans A (35 to 45 years of age) and Veterans B (over 45) categories.

The race will have two different routes, one approximately 5km and the other 10km. The race starts at BBVA's headquarters at Castellana 81 and ends on Paseo de Camoens.

Education in Kenyan refugee camps

UNHCR runs three refugee camps in Dadaab — Ifo, Hagadera and Dagahaley. Of the more than 970,000 refugees, 97.5% are from Somalia, and the remainder are from Ethiopia, Sudan, Eritrea, Uganda, the Congo, Rwanda, Tanzania, and Burundi.

The camps are located approximately 500km from Nairobi and 80km from the Somali border, in an area with harsh climatic conditions (temperatures of 40º to 50ºC, droughts, flooding, outbreaks of polio and Rift Valley fever), making survival extremely difficult.

UNHCR conducts activities to meet both the most immediate as well as the long-term needs of the refugees. Education plays a crucial role as an instrument for building and maintaining a social fabric, preventing unemployment, reducing frustration and the uprooting of the population, and creating a feeling of normalcy in the community.

Currently, 32,663 children are being taught at 18 pre-primary and primary schools in Dadaab. 39% of the children are girls. A very high percentage of both boys and girls in primary school do not attend class (44%).

Access to secondary-level education is limited, because of the small number of secondary schools, and the cost of tertiary education is beyond the reach of the vast majority of secondary-school graduates.