Stavros Niarchos Foundation Provides Major Grant to Rutgers University to Promote and Stimulate Greece’s Youth Employment, Agriculture, and Food Systems in Collaboration with The American Farm School and Agricultural University of Athens.
Athens, Greece– The Stavros Niarchos Foundation(SNF) has gifted a landmark grant of $27,477,000 to support a major initiative that aims to help revitalize one of Greece’s most critical sectors—agriculture—by training and developing a new generation of farmers and inspiring agriculture and food entrepreneurs.
The three-year project is spearheaded by Rutgers University–New Brunswickin partnership with the Agricultural University of Athens(AUA) and American Farm School(AFS). The interdisciplinary team from Rutgers, AUA, and AFS will strive to create job opportunities for youth in agriculture, which is Greece’s second-largest employer; help to prepare young workers for jobs at food-related businesses and family farms; and help them start their own businesses.
The grant is part of SNF’s Recharging the Youth €100 million euros initiative that unfolded at the height of Greece’s socioeconomic crisis to help create meaningful employment opportunities for thousands of unemployed young people. “The starting point of this landmark initiative was our desire to help as many young people as possible with employment opportunities within Greece’s agricultural and food sectors, that have unlimited growth potential.” said Andreas C. Dracopoulos, SNF Co-President. “But the grant is so much more than just an employment vehicle. It has the potential, we hope, to jump-start one of the country’s most important and strategic assets with unlimited growth potential, agriculture. We are not seeking to reinvent the wheel through this major grant. We are just trying to help boost its chances to become the growth and development engine that it should be.”
Read the full public announcement here
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