For students who come from low-income families, it’s easy to get lost on the road to higher education. Home life, economic pressures, and transportation barriers can keep the brightest minds from achieving their full potential.
Thankfully, there are nonprofit organizations like Juma Ventures, an Uber NW Community Impact Initiative partner whose mission is to help young adults break the cycle of poverty by paving the way to work, education, and financial capability.
By using Uber’s technology and donated funds to get program participants to and from their internships, Juma helps students like Kyle achieve their academic dreams.
Kyle is a driven young adult who wants to build technology that benefits the community. Because of Juma, he’s landed an internship, is saving for his first year of college, and has discovered financial aid opportunities to pay for future semesters.
With a goal to pursue a STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math) career, Kyle’s electrical engineering internship at Seattle University is the perfect fit. At first he was learning the basics, but now he gets to ask experts a lot of questions and is even building a robot.
“Every summer we place a number of our participants into internships, many of whom cannot complete them because of transportation issues that arise. Because of the grant from Uber, all of our interns are able to access transportation to complete their internships.”
– Mason Moore, Executive Director, Juma Ventures Seattle
For Kyle, transportation had previously been a significant challenge. In a given day, he’d spend 3 hours commuting. With donated Uber rides, he shaved an hour off his commute, affording him more time to focus on his passions.
Thanks to Juma, Kyle has a future and a path to college. As he put it, “not only have they assisted me with an internship, but their networking opportunities have opened up so many doors for financial aid and help.”
We’re proud to support Juma’s work to give young people the tools to build a sustainable future. So far this summer, Juma has placed 31 youth participants into internships. Collectively, they’ve taken more than 500 Uber trips.
In 2018, the Uber NW Community Impact Initiative has donated over $600,000 in financial assistance and rides to 45+ nonprofits across the region. For more information, visit t.uber.com/communityimpact.
Posted by Uber Editor
Get a ride when you need one
Start earning in your city
Get a ride when you need one
Start earning in your city
Related articles
Most popular
Supercharge the Way You Render Large Lists in React
Using Uber: your guide to the Pace RAP Program
uVitals – An Anomaly Detection & Alerting System
Balancing HDFS DataNodes in the Uber DataLake
Products
Company