© Steve Etherington for Mercedes-Benz Grand Prix Ltd.
Lewis Hamilton has released a statement after Sky announced a two-year partnership with his charitable foundation Mission 44.
Sky has announced a donation of over £1m to Lewis Hamilton’s foundation Mission 44, as part of £30m commitment to tackle systemic racism. The donation will be received during the two-year period.
The foundation aims to support, champion and empower young people from underserved groups in the UK to succeed by narrowing opportunity gaps.
Lewis Hamilton, who has not been heard from in the media since the controversial ending of the Abu Dhabi Grand Prix gave his comments on the partnership.
“Understanding and addressing issues that lead to young people being excluded from school is really important to me,” Lewis said.
“Having experienced unfair exclusions during my time at school, I understand how upsetting and stressful it can be.
“When we launched Mission 44 last year, implementing initiatives such as these was a personal priority and I am grateful to have the support of Sky to help Mission 44 take action.
“Through this partnership, I hope we can deliver meaningful change by arming schools with the proper strategies to support and empower young Black students, instead of giving up on them,” he concluded.
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Sky announced the partnership will include:
- ‘Preventing exclusions’ grants: grant funding for Multi-Academy Trusts to invest in interventions that reduce school exclusion rates.
- ‘Scaling impact’ grants: grant funding to support high potential or high impact interventions that prevent exclusions or improve trajectories of excluded students.
- The ‘Included’ research project: a research project to amplify the voices of a group of excluded students to discover what support they need to achieve positive outcomes.
- Early career insight programme: an early-career insight programme led by Sky to provide information, advice, and guidance on opportunities in the broadband and telecommunications industry for students at risk of exclusion and students already excluded from mainstream education.
“We are passionate about tackling racial injustice and welcome the opportunity to partner with Sir Lewis Hamilton and Mission 44 to champion and empower young people,” Sky Group’s CEO Dana Strong said.
“We hope our partnership will support Mission 44’s work to improve the experience of Black pupils and support them to succeed at school and beyond.”
Mission 44 CEO Jason Arthur also gave his comments.
“Preventing school exclusions is an issue of social justice,” Arthur said.
“Excluded students often must contend with a range of complex social and economic challenges, such as poverty, racism and mental ill-health, that cause them to face both disadvantage and discrimination in our education system.
“I’m delighted that Mission 44 will be working with Sky to transform the lives of some of the most vulnerable learners in our education system.”
