The partnership helps HP make progress toward its goal to enable better learning outcomes for 100 million people by 2025. In its 2021 Sustainable Impact Report, HP said more than 74 million students and adult learners have benefited from HP’s education programs and solutions since the beginning of 2015.
The need for in-demand digital skills is acute. Globally, around one-fifth of young people are unemployed and not receiving any education or training, according to United Nations-sponsored non-profit Decent Jobs for Youth. Nearly 68 million young people are seeking a job and more than 123 million young people are working, yet living in poverty, it reports.
A drive to promote equality
Growing up in Togo in West Africa, Sanvee says he saw first-hand the disparities between himself and peers in his church youth group. He readily had access to food, shelter, and schooling — while many others did not.
“My commitment to bridging the gap and building a more equitable world started with that small community of young people,” he says.
He volunteered at the Togo YMCA, then took a job there in 1987. Since then, he held key roles in development, programming, communication, finance, and leadership. In 2018, Sanvee became the first African to be elected Secretary General of the World YMCA.
The beginning of a new relationship
The YMCA and HP had their first opportunity to work together in June 2021 when HP participated in the YMCA's virtual Youth-Led Solutions’ Future of Work Summit, a virtual convention that introduced attendees to new pathways for careers in the green economy, the care economy, and the creative economy.
Both parties quickly realized the relationship could expand beyond that event.
“There is a matching of our goals,” Sanvee says.
HP has committed to accelerating digital equity for 150 million people by 2030. The YMCA’s Vision 2030 strategy also incorporates digital equity as it fosters education, employment, and entrepreneurship in communities worldwide.