Global Impact Project: EDHEC travels to meet its partners in Cameroon
Students on EDHEC Business School’s BBA and Master in Management programmes will soon be able to avail of a new opportunity to gain international experience: Global Impact Projets (GIPs). From June 2024, these foreign assignments will allow students to complete their international experience requirement by volunteering for a semester with a non-governmental or not-for-profit organisation in the field.
In December 2023, Sonia Gastaud, Head of Global Impact & Mobility Programmes, who oversees the school's GIPs, visited the cities of Douala and Yaoundé in Cameroon, a country that hosts a large number of GIP partners. The aim of the trip was to meet the school’s GIP partner organisations, visit the places where student assignments would take place, and ensure students will be welcomed and hosted in the best possible conditions.
During her trip, Sonia Gastaud visited a health centre powered by solar panels installed by the Association de la Jeunesse Verte du Cameroun, a children’s care centre, co-ordinated by the Agapé association, and also Yaoundé City Council II, which works with the Jeunes Volontaires Francophones du Cameroun, to develop green projects for the city of Yaoundé: “It’s vital to be in close contact with the assignments offered to GIP students”, says Sonia Gastaud. “In the field, I once again saw the impact of the actions taken by our partners. Through their volunteers and employees, these not-for-profits are actively engaged in improving living conditions for the people of Yaoundé and Douala. Their actions are geared to fighting poverty, offering access to education and raising awareness of health risks among the population, particularly as certain areas have limited access to water. The students who choose to participate in projects in Cameroon will have to meet these challenges, while working on assignments that will change them for ever.”
As part of the trip, EDHEC organised an afternoon meeting at the French cultural institute in Yaoundé with three of its GIP partner associations in Cameroon (Association de la Jeunesse Verte du Cameroun, Jeunes Volontaires Francophones du Cameroun and Agapé), and with members of France Volontaires Cameroun, the French international volunteer platform attached to France’s Ministry for Europe and Foreign Affairs. It was largely thanks to France Volontaires Yaoundé that EDHEC managed to identify not-for-profits capable of hosting its students for solidarity assignments. During the session, the GIP partner associations, EDHEC and France Volontaires worked together on the next stages of preparing the upcoming GIPs. The focus was on standardising assignments for EDHEC students in Cameroon, to ensure their content meet the criteria for obtaining a Global Impact Project certificate, or 30 credits in the case of BBA students.
