TIFF 2014 has not been all about the movies. Along with last Friday’s Stand Up to Cancer star-studded initiative, this past Monday, September 8th Sir Richard Branson hosted a press conference and party to announce Virgin Mobile’s RE*Generation initiative to help at-risk and homeless youth get jobs in Canada. The event was held at Virgin Mobile Mod Club and brought out a lot of media to meet the famous businessman and learn more about his program. Following his explanation of the initiative, the doors opened to a larger audience and all were privy to a concert by The Arkells.
So what is this program all about? We started the evening by learning about the baffling fact that 225,000 Canadian youth are not in school and not employed. Great way to catch our attention and impress with the plan Virgin Mobile has to help youth find jobs and feel worthy. Over the next three years, they will be providing jobs for 450 young people who are troubled and homeless in hopes that this will have a lasting impact on the lives of Canadian youth.
Teamed up with CivicAction and Social Capital Partners, investments will be made in programs that provide troubled youth with jobs in necessary sectors all over Canada. In Toronto, the initiative will be mostly within the IT world, as this is where there is a need. In other cities, the program will be applied to digital, print, food services, and construction.
To educate Canada about these programs and to enable Canadian entrepreneurs to get involved, Virgin Mobile has paired up with Samsung Canada to greater support the RE*Generation movement and have announced four phones of which a portion of sales will be donated to help the at-risk and homeless youth gain employment. The phones were released on September 8th and donations have already started. Virgin Mobile users also have the option to donate $1 towards their monthly bill to contribute to the cause.
The event was a big success, and following all this information guests danced to the sounds of The Arkells all night long. Sir Richard Branson was gracious enough to walk through the crowd to say hello and then quietly escaped through the back door.
What are your thoughts on this Virgin Mobile initiative? Let us know in the comments below or tweet us @ViewTheVIbe.