OL Fondation celebrates its 15th anniversary

OL Fondation celebrates its 15th anniversary

Created on August 25, 2007 on the initiative of Club President Jean-Michel Aulas, OL Fondation symbolizes the commitment of Olympique Lyonnais to the values ​​of respect and solidarity. For 15 years, the club’s foundation has carried out social commitments and supported structures and their projects of general interest through an approach developed over the long term with the objective of having real positive impacts on its territory.

Delivering hope and emotion through football

For children passionate about sport, living a privileged moment in the heart of a club is an unforgettable experience. OL Fondation strives to offer unique moments to bring hope and comfort, particularly to people who are sick, disabled or underprivileged. The latter are invited to meet OL players, or to attend a match or a visit to Groupama Stadium.

A long-time partner of the Léon Bérard Center and the IHOPe (Institute of Hematology and Pediatric Oncology), OL Fondation has maintained strong ties with young people, families and caregivers by allowing them to participate in various activations alongside players, OL players but also around the major events organized at Groupama Stadium.

Since 2018, OL Fondation has chosen to get involved with the Femme Mère Enfant hospital , which is carrying out a global project “Sport and health for sick children” and the first hospital to have a “Transition Space” dedicated to adolescents. with chronic diseases. Many actions are organized throughout the year, in particular with the professional women’s and men’s teams, young players and educators from OL Academy, to work with young patients.

OL Fondation carries out various operations to “offer hope and emotion” thanks to Olympique Lyonnais. During matches, the OL Fondation telepresence robot is used by hospitalized children to go behind the scenes of the matches and talk to the players. Tours of the OL museum are also offered, as well as attendance at major events, such as concerts organized at Groupama Stadium. Since January 2016, the OL Fondation telepresence robot has been activated at more than 70 events.

Olympique Lyonnais players regularly welcome special guests from OL Fondation during training sessions behind closed doors. Whether they are young or adults, in a situation of illness, disability or personal difficulty, the participants are delighted to experience these moments which constitute a parenthesis in their daily lives. On average, 25 people participate in training on this system each season.

In support of local associations, visits to the OL museum and Groupama Stadium as well as match tickets are offered throughout the season to allow as many people as possible to attend home matches. Each year, more than 10,000 invitations are thus distributed by OL Fondation to players in the general interest.

Promoting equal opportunities

Olympique Lyonnais, through its mixed Academy, places support and mutual aid at the heart of its concerns to reveal potential. In the world of football, social origin is not decisive for success on the field. It is in this context that OL Fondation wishes to focus its attention on all initiatives that promote equal opportunities, with students from disadvantaged backgrounds, people far from employment, isolated or precarious people, etc.

Founding partner of Sport dans la Ville , OL Fondation supports this association in numerous actions for the benefit of their programs dedicated to integration. The Groupama Stadium and OL Vallée facilities are also available. Young people are welcomed in a unique setting that is different from their daily lives to discuss with Olympique Lyonnais employees in order to work on their professional project or to train for a job. Various meetings are organized throughout the year to allow young people from Sport dans la Ville to share unique moments with the players of Olympique Lyonnais. The various actions carried out make it possible to promote young people, reward their efforts, give them confidence in themselves and in their future.

A major partner of OL Fondation since 2018, the Ma Chance Moi Aussi  association is involved in early prevention. The association offers educational and pedagogical support to children from families in difficulty living in priority neighborhoods, from the CP class to the baccalaureate. OL Fondation supports Ma Chance Moi Aussi and its establishment in the Lyon metropolitan area, in particular through the opening of a center that has been welcoming 24 children from Décines-Charpieu daily to the Groupama Stadium since 2019. Players and the entire ecosystem of the Olympique Lyonnais intervene to support these children in their educational journey.

Olympique Lyonnais recently entered into a major new partnership in favor of equal opportunities by joining the collective of the Entreprise des Possibles. Since 2021, financial, material and human support has been made available to support this network of associations dedicated to people in great difficulty. In 2022, the program specifically supported by OL Fondation is “Friends of the Street”. Recently taken over by Habitat et Humanisme, this day center located in Villeurbanne has been renovated and enlarged to better take into account the reception of homeless women: creation of a space dedicated to women (to avoid problems of insecurity and harassment), rehabilitation of the hygiene area, reorganization of the conviviality area and creation of a space for collective activities and offices for health consultations.

Since 2007, OL Fondation has organized employment forums in the club’s facilities. All candidates have the opportunity to meet recruiters in a different setting. Individual support is also offered upstream. Since 2016, job dating has been added to the forums, thanks to the Cité des Entreprises pour l’Emploi, which brings together OL Fondation, Pôle emploi and Nes & Cité, a firm specializing in employment mediation. As part of these job dating, candidates are now sourced without a CV, taking into account their skills, their motivation, and the bridges between professions, thanks to #JenesuispasunCV, a partner of OL Fondation. Since 2016, Groupama Stadium has hosted more than 90 employment events, and nearly 3,000 people have been recruited.

Raising awareness of environmental impact

The Groupama Stadium is an emblematic place, conducive to awareness and communication aimed at a variety of audiences. This is how OL Fondation wanted to create and run two sites dedicated to biodiversity near Groupama Stadium, echoing the environmental approach of Olympique Lyonnais. 

OL Fondation has chosen to support the “Carbone Scol’ERE” program since the 2020-2021 season. This program allows the Léo Lagrange Federation to raise young people’s awareness of the challenges of climate change, while facilitating and supporting young people and their families to take action. The system is based on a dedicated digital platform and a series of 5 2-hour educational workshops, given by facilitators in primary schools and colleges. For the past two seasons, OL Fondation has financed the deployment of this program in 20 classes in the Lyon metropolitan area, thus reinforcing the actions to raise awareness of biodiversity that already exist on the Groupama Stadium site.

Since 2016, free educational workshops have been held each year with the beekeeper in charge of the 12 hives on the site and in partnership with the associative structure Pistyles which animates the garden in permaculture. These workshops are organized for schools, social centers and associations.