Posted on August 15, 2011

Western Union Foundation Awards $1.8 Million in Second-Quarter Grants

The Western Union Foundation in Englewood, Colorado, has announced second-quarter grants totaling $1.8 to nearly fifty nonprofits, including several working to expand global economic opportunity through programs that aim to improve access to labor markets and job training opportunities, enhance language acquisition, and help immigrants assimilate into their new communities.

To support international entrepreneurship, the foundation awarded several grants, including $10,000 to Open Africa to provide training in marketing and business development to a group of women who have developed tourism services and attractions along a heavily used highway in rural South Africa, and $80,000 to Tsinghua University Education Foundation in China to provide senior university students and recent graduates with business training.

Through its Building Bridges initiative, the foundation awarded grants to organizations working to ease the transition of recent immigrants to their adopted countries. Recipients include Public Interest Projects, which was awarded $100,000 for a national grassroots effort to promote understanding between recent immigrants and their American-born neighbors; Upwardly Global, which will receive $15,000 to provide college-educated immigrants with career counseling services; and Shivi Development Society, which was awarded $10,000 to help support people in India moving from rural areas to cities.

"Today, many individuals endure loneliness and exile, simply to provide food, shelter, and other basic necessities for loved ones back home," said Western Union Foundation president Luella Chavez D'Angelo. "The organizations we support work tirelessly to ease some of the burdens faced by these people and their families, giving them a chance to build a better life. Western Union Foundation's greater goal is to help people prosper and create economic opportunity."