The Club Med Foundation has been awarded ‘Best Corporate Social Responsibility Initiative of the Year’ at the recent Peace and Sports Awards 2011 in Monaco.

This award category was created to reward an international corporation which has particularly shown its citizenship by using sport as a tool for peace and education.

The Club Med Foundation’s ‘Sport Foundation Schools’, is a simple concept where children from schools in disadvantaged areas are given access to Club Med’s facilities and sports instructors. The Sports Foundation schools operate in a number of Club Med resorts including those in Senegal, Morocco, Tunisia and Malaysia.

The Club Med Sports Foundation Schools host weekly recreational sports activities such as tennis, archery and soccer for underprivileged children living close to the resorts. The program enables Club Med to identify the children’s talents, develop their skills and even recruit them into roles as sports instructors at the resorts.

The Club Med Foundation’s mission is to encourage company employees to do volunteer work that helps benefit the people in the communities that their Club Med workplace is based. The foundation operates a number of different initiatives across their resorts worldwide.

For example, Club Med Phuket gives child care supplies such as bottles, formula and diapers to the local child care organisation called Child Watch Association of Phuket. In Club Med Cancun, the resort supports local children by taking books and stationary to the local school. Guests at these resorts are also encouraged to give back to the local communities by bringing childcare necessities which Club Med passes onto the local associations and schools.

The prestigious Peace and Sports Awards Ceremony is a highlight of the annual Peace and Sport International Forum. The ceremony rewards sport initiatives and individuals who contribute to peace and social stability in vulnerable areas.

Peace and Sport is a global initiative that promotes the practice of structured sport and sporting values to educate young generations and help foster social stability, reconciliation and dialogue between communities. Peace and Sport is based in Monaco under the High Patronage of His Serene Highness Prince Albert II of Monaco.