- Access to higher education for hundreds of children from vulnerable families;
- Support for communities in building their sustainable future.
bp on behalf of its co-venturers in the Azeri-Chirag-Gunashli, Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan, Shah Deniz and South Caucasus Pipeline projects – TPAO, SOCAR, SGC, LUKOIL, NICO, MOL, Equinor, INPEX, ExxonMobil, ITOCHU, Eni, TotalEnergies, ONGCVidesh – today hosted an event to celebrate the results of yet another successful year of the ‘Build Your Future’ project.
This initiative, which has been supported by bp and its co-venturers for seven years, aims to specifically train apt children from disadvantaged families in preparation for university admission.
This seventh phase of the project supported 60 eleventh grade students selected from the Garadagh, Kurdamir, Ujar, Agdash, Yevlakh, Hajigabul, Samukh and Goranboy districts. The vast majority of participants completed the training programme successfully with outstanding results: 54 admitted to higher educational institutions and four to colleges. Two of the participants scored over 600 and four over 500 at the entrance exams.
The project is part of bp’s and its co-venturers’ commitment to enhancing capacity-building and social development in the neighbouring communities. The extensive training programme focuses on such subjects and activities that guide children towards university admission. In addition, the project provides participants with psychological support and helps their social integration.
To date, the project has benefited around 500 disadvantaged families representing various communities in the Garadagh, Kurdamir, Ujar, Agdash, Yevlakh, Hajigabul, Samukh and Goranboy districts.
In total, some 463 young talented people out of 542 participants in the seven phases of the project – around 85%, have been successful, meeting the requirements of the higher school entrance exams and becoming students at various universities.
Addressing today’s event, Bakhtiyar Aslanbayli, bp's vice president for the Caspian region, communications and external affairs, said:
“This is one of our favourite projects which fully fits our own sustainability objectives. It supports young talented people who we believe will build not only their own future but also help boost their communities’ livelihoods. We are proud to have provided opportunities to date for more than 500 young people from vulnerable families to become university students. We hope the journey they have started from our project will lead them to their best lifetime occupation.”
The total value of the seven phases of the project is around 2 million AZN ($1.2 million) (including around 251,000 AZN ($148,000) spent for phase 7) with the duration of one year for each phase.
The project is implemented by the ‘Build Your Future’ LLC.