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15-07-2015


The Coca-Cola Foundation and Injaz Al Arab’s Ripples of Happiness Program Winners Demonstrate Big Acts of Love through Small Acts of Kindness




The Coca-Cola Foundation in partnership with INJAZ Al-Arab Continue to Instill Social Entrepreneurship among over 400 youth across the Region as the sixth edition of Ripples of Happiness comes to an end
The Coca-Cola Foundation, in partnership with INJAZ Al-Arab, have announced the winners of the sixth edition of the ‘Ripples of Happiness’ program.  Over 8,750 hours of student community service was served from a number of universities from Palestine, Bahrain, Saudi Arabia, Lebanon, Jordan and the United Arab Emirates.
 
Palestine Technical University secured the first place position, making them eligible for a $10,000 grant, with their ‘We communicate with Signs’ project. Students from Arab American University in Palestine came in close second with their ‘First Aid-First Step’ project, which secured them a $7,000 grant to implement their idea. UTOPIA from Lebanon secured third place and $5,000 for their ‘Pool me Up’ project.
 
The panel of judges who chose the winning projects were  Dana Salloum, ‎Manager of Government, Industry and Community Engagement at Boeing Middle East; Rania Rostom, ‎Chief Innovation & Communications Officer, MENA at General Electric, and Omar Bennis Director of Communications and Public Affairs at Coca-Cola Middle East. The growing number of submissions and sophistication of the projects speaks volumes about the motivation of students in the Middle East and their passion to make a difference in their communities. 
 
Chairman of INJAZ Al-Arab’s Regional Board, H.E Sheikh Khaled Bin Zayed Al Nehayan remarks: “Partnering with the Coca-Cola Foundation to implement the Ripples of Happiness Program allows us to instruct students in financial literacy, work readiness and entrepreneurship skills. After all, we believe in the boundless potential of young people and through the Ripples of Happiness Program, we demonstrate our commitment to connecting knowledge and experience with socially- conscious programs and enthusiasm.”
 
Omar Bennis, Director of Communications and Public Affairs at Coca-Cola Middle East says, “The driving force behind the success of ‘Ripples of Happiness’ is the understanding that the most important thing about doing good deeds is the ‘doing’. They could be acts, big or small, they may not change the world, but they change someone’s world.  The Coca-Cola Foundation recognizes there is a strong need to foster and nurture student’s skill for the future, and we are seeing wonderful submissions year on year that prove to us that we’re on the right track.”
 
The ‘Ripples of Happiness’ program focuses on empowering youth innovation and entrepreneurship to equip them with the skills they need to become socially responsible members of their respective societies. The competitive program also instills a strong sense of entrepreneurship in the participants, and plants seeds of workplace readiness that continue to blossom even after the program has come to an end.
 
The Coca-Cola Foundation joins forces with INJAZ-Al-Arab to train university students in the art of identifying opportunities in their local communities and how to implement projects that will leave a positive impact as a strategy to encourage other members of society to follow their lead, thus creating a ‘ripples effect’ that will continue to spread from one generation to another. 
 
Since its inception in 2012 the Ripples of Happiness has grown in reach across the Middle East Region, taking place simultaneously in Palestine, Bahrain, Saudi Arabia, Lebanon, Jordan and most recently the United Arab Emirates, reaching 48 Universities with more than 2360 participating students in total.  An impressive 350 students participated in the last ROH program.  Finally, the program has resulted in over 50,375 hours of community service benefiting thousands of people across the Middle East.