22 Mar 2016

Prudential launches charitable partnerships for RideLondon 2016

Prudential has today announced new initiatives with Greenhouse Sports, Teach First and the Invictus Games Foundation around the 2016 Prudential RideLondon. These partnerships will provide opportunities for young people from disadvantaged communities and wounded and injured service personnel to ride in both the Prudential RideLondon-Surrey 100 challenge and the new 46-mile event.

Through these initiatives, beneficiaries from each of the three charities will be provided with practical, tangible support to take part in these exciting events. Prudential will provide training as well as the opportunity to take part in employability and coaching workshops with a range of business people and athletes.

Mike Wells, Prudential’s Group Chief Executive, said: “I am delighted we are expanding Team Prudential to include these new partnerships with Greenhouse Sports, Teach First and the Invictus Games Foundation. These important partnerships will play a positive role in tackling social exclusion and educational inequality in London and supporting veterans in their rehabilitation. I’d like to wish all the riders the very best of luck and I look forward to being there on July 31 to cheer them on.”

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Brett Wigdortz OBE, Founder and Chief Executive, Teach First said: "I'm delighted that Prudential RideLondon 2016 has chosen Teach First as an official charity partner. Prudential is a great supporter of Teach First’s work to tackle education inequality and Prudential RideLondon offers a fantastic opportunity and a challenge for teachers and students to push themselves and try something new. Prudential’s support, with their physical training for the event and their future mentoring, is testament to their commitment to wanting to change the lives of young people."

Dominic Reid, Managing Director of the Invictus Games Foundation, said: “We’re thrilled that Prudential has picked the Invictus Games Foundation as one of its chosen charities for Prudential RideLondon 2016. Thanks to Prudential’s support we are able to give even more wounded, injured and sick Service personnel the opportunity to use sport as a vehicle for their recovery and rehabilitation.”

Michael de Giorgio, Greenhouse Sports’ Chief Executive, said: “We are thrilled to be able to celebrate our partnership with Prudential through this new initiative, taking part – alongside Teach First and Invictus – in the Prudential RideLondon 46 mile event. This is yet another example of how Prudential’s support enables us to provide the young people we work with, with fantastic opportunities and new experiences. At Greenhouse Sports we use sport to engage with young people from disadvantaged communities in London, and help them to develop beneficial life skills so that they can reach their full potential. Training and taking part in the Prudential RideLondon event on this iconic route will be a massive achievement for every one of them, which we hope inspires them and builds their confidence for their future."

Staged for the first time in August 2013, Prudential RideLondon is the largest festival of cycling in the world, with 100,000 participants expected to cycle more than three million miles during the weekend of 30-31 July 2016.

As well as the opportunity to take on a personal challenge, Prudential RideLondon provides significant benefits to good causes, with thousands riding for charity. More than £12 million was raised in 2015, a record for a UK one-day cycling event, bringing the total raised for charity in the first three years of the event to more than £29 million.

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Notes to editors:

About Prudential RideLondon:
Prudential RideLondon is the world’s greatest festival of cycling. The fourth edition will take place over the weekend of Saturday 30 July and Sunday 31 July 2016.

About Greenhouse Sports:
Founded in 2002, Greenhouse Sports is a London-based charity committed to using sport to help young people realise their full potential. Coaches work full-time in schools and the community to provide outstanding, intensive sports programmes that nurture social, thinking, emotional and physical skills which equip young people for life.

So far, Greenhouse Sports has worked with over 38,000 young people and is always pushing to reach more. During 2014-15, Greenhouse Sports delivered 50,000 hours of coaching, giving young people a healthy, positive environment in which to spend their time, before, during and after school, and during the holidays.

About Invictus:
The Invictus Games is the international adaptive sporting event for wounded, injured and sick Servicemen and women, both serving and veteran. The Games use the power of sport to inspire recovery, support rehabilitation and generate a wider understanding and respect of all those who serve their country.

Following the success of the 2014 Invictus Games, the Invictus Games Foundation has been established to develop and pursue the event’s legacy. It manages the selection of the hosts for future games and oversees their delivery. In July 2015, the Invictus Games Foundation announced that the 2016 Invictus Games had been awarded to Orlando.

About Teach First:
Teach First is a charity with the vision that no child’s educational success is limited by their socio-economic background. In partnership with universities, schools and businesses, Teach First is working to achieve its vision by enabling its participants and ambassadors in the classroom to raise the achievement, aspiration, and access to opportunity of children from low socio-economic backgrounds, whilst developing a network of leaders with a life-long commitment to ending inequality in education from both inside and outside the classroom. Since 2002, the charity has recruited over 7,000 graduates and career changers to teach in schools in low-income areas.

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