Since its launch five years ago, the Veolia Foundation is regularly approached by students to help them complete their outreach cooperation projects. The Foundation team, concerned to accompany this initiative, has decided to provide the best projects with financial support and the skills of Veolia employees by creating a Student Solidarity Prize.
To be eligible, the projects must fall into one of the major areas of action of the Foundation: aid to development, aid to vulnerable persons, workforce development, and environment and biodiversity conservation. The professionalism of the proposed approach, the knowledge and understanding of local needs, the relevance of the institutional setup, its permanence, the means employed to assess the project throughout its lifetime, and the general legibility of the actions, are all points for ultimate selection.
The projects are submitted to a jury of members of the Foundation, of the Veolia Campus and representative schools and universities.
At the first prize award session, which took place last May 14th, in partnership with the "HEC Solidarity Campus", seven initiatives were selected and three shared a grant of 10.000 €.
As of the 2009 academic reopening, the associations of many school and university campuses can apply as candidates for the Student Solidarity Prize, extended beyond the HEC student body.