The Goldman Sachs Foundation Announces $2.5 Million in Grants for International Education Projects in Europe, Africa, Asia & South America.

Business Editors

NEW YORK--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Feb. 26, 2003

The Goldman Sachs Foundation today announced $2.5 million in grants to outstanding educational organizations for a variety of innovative education and youth development projects in Europe, Africa, Asia and South America.

The grants range in size from $175,000 to $1,000,000. With these new awards, the Foundation has now committed nearly $14.5 million to international projects since inception in 1999.

Commenting on the announcement, John C. Whitehead, Chairman of The Goldman Sachs Foundation, said, "In schools worldwide, educators are grappling with how to prepare young people to think constructively about the challenges of a world that is increasingly interconnected, even as significant divisions are emerging among countries and cultures. These grants are designed to help young people better understand the world they live in, engage in critical thinking and build their knowledge and understanding of global affairs."

Stephanie Bell-Rose, President of The Goldman Sachs Foundation, added, "Developing well-prepared leaders for tomorrow is a driving goal of the Foundation. These grants, which foster teacher development and student learning in technology, team work, entrepreneurship and business planning, will promote the development of tomorrow's leaders and contribute to the lifelong productivity of the young people involved."

With selected grants, the Foundation will combine a contribution of financial and intellectual capital in the form of Goldman Sachs professional expertise through its unique brand of "venture philanthropy," the practice of high-engagement grant making and accessing the core competencies of Goldman Sachs to enrich grantee programs. The Foundation will leverage a network of volunteers who will serve as mentors, teachers, advisory board members and presenters on such topics as entrepreneurship, business and investing.

The grants announced today:

-- $1,000,000 to Facing History and Ourselves (Boston, MA) to extend professional development resources to teachers around the world, to expand online capacity, and to infuse global issues more thoroughly into the organization's instructional materials. The organization, which engages teachers and students of diverse backgrounds in an examination of racism, prejudice and anti-Semitism in order to promote the development of a more humane citizenry, reaches more than 1.6 million students around the globe each year. Foundation support will be used to explore and evaluate educational partnerships for cooperative programs in South Africa, the United Kingdom, Colombia and certain countries of the former Soviet Union. The grant is awarded as part of the Foundation's program focus on Advancing Academic Achievement.

-- $525,000 to World Links (Washington, DC) to fund the expansion of its teacher professional development workshop to 400 teachers from 100 schools in the Brazilian states of Ceara, Espiritu Santo and Minas Gerais; and to establish the teacher development program in 40 demonstration schools in China. Designed to help teachers learn how to integrate technology in the classroom and to encourage the development of student skills in entrepreneurship and collaboration, the grant will enable World Links to reach 100,000 students in Brazil and 21,000 students in China. The grant is awarded as part of the Foundation's program focus on Advancing Academic Achievement.

-- $375,000 (EUR235,900) to the University of Warwick (Coventry, United Kingdom) to provide support for the development of academically gifted youth from underrepresented backgrounds at the university's National Academy for Gifted and Talented Youth (NAGTY). Awarded as part of the Foundation's signature initiative in Developing High-Potential Youth, the program includes a summer residential program on a college campus; entrepreneurship education provided by the National Foundation for Teaching Entrepreneurship/UK, including a business plan competition; and online mentoring from Goldman Sachs professionals and MBA students. Goldman Sachs professionals also will serve on NAGTY's advisory board. The program is modeled on the Foundation's successful partnership with the Center for Talented Youth at The Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, MD.

-- $205,000 (EUR192,000) to the International Youth Foundation (Baltimore, MD) to launch a program that fosters youth leadership, creativity and entrepreneurship in secondary schools in Germany. Pioneered and tested in eastern Germany, the "Schools Clubs and Enterprises" program teaches young people to create small enterprises modeled after real companies. With support from the Foundation, the program will be established in 12 target schools in Bavaria and Brandenburg, reaching hundreds of young people. Participating schools in eastern Germany will work closely with those in western Germany. The program is a rare example of post-reunification knowledge transfer from the East to the West. The grant is awarded as part of the Foundation's program focus on Advancing Academic Achievement.

-- $180,000 to Junior Achievement International (JAI; Atlanta, GA) to launch a business education program through Junior Achievement Member Nation operations in Johannesburg, South Africa, and Shanghai and Hong Kong, China. The program will be a web-based, university-level business planning course taught by MBA students and business professionals, who will also serve as mentors. Venture capitalists, business professors, executives and JAI board members will serve as judges in the business plan competitions. The grant is awarded as part of the Foundation's program focus on Promoting Entrepreneurship and Business Education.

-- $175,000 to NetAid (New York, NY) to support high-quality education programs for young people and teacher development materials for educators in Limpopo Province, South Africa, and Beijing, China. These projects are a part of NetAid's "World Schoolhouse" initiative, which seeks to bring educational opportunities to the world's poorest children. Foundation funding will support World Schoolhouse's program with the Practical Skills Training Center for Rural Women in Beijing, providing room and board, courses in reading, writing and arithmetic, and preparation for the Beijing School Exams to help unskilled young women ages 16-18 improve their employment opportunities. Foundation funding will also be used to develop teaching materials, enabling the program's replication across China. In South Africa, Foundation funding will support a World Schoolhouse project run by READ Educational Trust to help young people living in Limpopo Province, the second poorest in the country, to overcome post-apartheid inequalities. READ's project will improve the quality of education provided in government schools at the secondary level, training hundreds of teachers and ensuring that more than 10,000 young people receive a quality education. The Foundation also will support costs related to the screening, selection, monitoring and evaluation of these two projects. The grant is awarded as part of the Foundation's program focus on Advancing Academic Achievement.

About The Goldman Sachs Foundation

The Goldman Sachs Foundation is a global philanthropic organization funded by The Goldman Sachs Group, Inc. The Foundation's mission is to promote excellence and innovation in education and to improve the academic performance and lifelong productivity of young people worldwide. It achieves this mission through a combination of strategic partnerships, grants, loans, private sector investments, and the deployment of professional talent from Goldman Sachs. Funded in 1999, the Foundation has awarded grants in excess of $40 million since its inception, providing opportunities for young people in more than 20 countries.