EDHEC Business School mobilises all its community for Covid-19 victims

Faced with the spread of the Covid-19 epidemic and the ravages caused by the virus, the EDHEC community is engaging in a variety of solidarity measures geared to helping the hardest-hit participants in our society. Under the impetus of different communities - Alumni, Foundation and research chairs – an array of initiatives is emerging with the common objective of supporting the victims of Covid-19, whether vulnerable populations, students or businesses in difficulty.

The EDHEC Foundation has activated an emergency fund to help students impacted by the Covid-19 crisis 

Faced with the health crisis and in co-ordination with the School, the EDHEC Foundation has ramped up the solidarity fund created in 2019 to help students in financial difficulty and converted it into an emergency fund. The fund is being used to award bursaries and exceptional aid to French and international students financially affected by the Covid-19 crisis, whether via the cancellation of a student job or internship, the loss of parental income or extra living costs entailed by an extended stay abroad.    

To raise funds, the EDHEC Foundation has launched an extensive appeal to the generosity of its alumni. And extending the impact of this initiative, the whole of the EDHEC community – School, Foundation, donors – is mobilising behind a that will see EDHEC double the amount of donations up to an overall amount of €200,000.

“Humanist values lie at the heart of EDHEC and our Foundation. We cannot remain unmoved in the face of an unprecedented crisis that is affecting us and hitting our most vulnerable students. The wave of generosity immediately shown by the EDHEC community towards the Foundation is a fine example of inter-generational solidarity within a major business school”, asserts Anne Guillon, Director of the EDHEC Foundation.

The Foresight, Innovation and Transformation research chair is mobilising students to help businesses in difficulty   

In order to support businesses impacted by the health crisis, the Foresight, Innovation and Transformation (FIT) research chair has moved to set up teams of students devoted to supporting companies in major difficulty. These EDHEC Students Against the Crisis (ESAC) teams will offer assistance and strategic advice to the management teams of the companies concerned. Each 3-5 member ESAC team will invest 25 hours of time over 3 weeks, in order to help company managements overcome the crisis, by imagining recovery scenarios or new business plans.

“The chair is leveraging its experience in drawing up strategic scenarios in crisis conditions. Today, this initiative has both a solidarity and a learning objective: EDHEC is helping to support our economic fabric through the energy and implication of our students, while also enabling them to acquire unique real-life experience of crisis management and business strategy”, explains René Rohrbeck, Director of the FIT research chair.

EDHEC Alumni is providing material assistance to medical personnel in France and Africa  

The EDHEC Alumni association has joined forces with The Alliance for International Medical Action (ALIMA), an NGO that supplies people in Africa with emergency medical assistance. Amid this unprecedented Covid-19 pandemic, EDHEC Alumni has teamed up with two other prestigious business schools in the #OxygenforAfrica operation, launched on 6 April with the aim of financing the purchase of respiratory equipment through donations.

“For EDHEC Alumni, there was no decision to make when we had the possibility of helping to reduce Covid-19 related mortality in one of the world’s most vulnerable continents. As an Alumni association of an internationally renowned business school, we feel it’s our duty to provide support in terms of medical equipment or personnel to people in very vulnerable countries that lack the means to cope with the magnitude of the disease. I’m particularly happy that the initiative stems from the joint mobilisation of three major business schools”, underlines Martin Barbier, Directorof EDHEC Alumni.

EDHEC Alumni and members of the EDHEC BBA student union are heavily engaged alongside some 20 alumni associations of leading business and engineering schools in a fund-raising exercise organised by the French Red Cross. The aim is to provide medical staff with protective masks, gloves, gowns and hair caps. For each donation made, EDHEC Alumni has agreed to contribute the same amount. So far, the efforts of the participating associations have raised €180,000 in donations.