ACE's focus on education extends around the world. The following is a sampling of our activity in this area:

Bermuda Scholarships Support Higher Education

Established in 1996, the Robert Clements/ACE Scholars Program enables ACE to provide financial assistance to students each year. The program offers qualified students a unique opportunity to further their education at accredited universities offering degrees in insurance, risk management or actuarial science.  For application information, contact: acefoundation@ace.bm .

Working with the Beijing Youth Development Foundation and China’s “Project Hope,” the ACE INA Foundation stepped in with funding to build and fully equip a brand new school in a remote mountain district of China, a four-hour drive north of Beijing. More than 230 children from throughout a roughly 5,400 square mile, (8,700 square kilometer) area now have the benefit of a modern school building, dormitory, computers, library and laboratory. ACE even provided funding to help subsidize the school’s operating budget for the next six years. Orphaned children are now enrolled in the Half the Sky programs which ACE has supported since 2006, to provide them with love and hope. Since Half the Sky began its work in China in 2000, more than ten thousand children have benefited from one or more of these innovative programs.

European Risk Managers Support ACE Sponsored Fund for Red Cross in India

European risk managers who attended the FERMA (Federation of European Risk Managers) Congress in Geneva on October 1, 2007 helped ACE raise more than 400,000 Euros for a Red Cross HIV/AIDS educational program in India. The ACE Foundation contributed 200 Euros for each risk manager attending ACE’s charity reception at the Red Cross Museum in Geneva. The full contribution will support the Red Cross’s lifesaving work increasing awareness of HIV/AIDS among young people in India’s northern state of Uttar Pradesh.

ACE Employees in the United States Teach Reading Skills to Children

Every Wednesday during the 2007 spring semester, 45 fourth and fifth-grade students from Philadelphia’s McCall School traveled to the ACE offices at 436 Walnut to participate in the Reading Stars tutoring program.  From noon until 1 p.m., the students worked one-on-one with their ACE coaches to practice and review basic reading skills.  More than 75 ACE employees participated in the program as reading coaches, co-coaches and alternates. 

Students participating in the Reading Stars program currently read below their grade level, and they benefited greatly from the extra help and personalized instruction.  The goal of the program is to help students become fluent readers, which will provide a strong foundation for future academic achievement.

The ACE Reading Stars program is an outgrowth of the 2005 Global Day of Service, during which employees participated in Reading Stars sessions at two Philadelphia elementary schools.  Employees’ response to the ACE Reading Stars program was so enthusiastic that the program was expanded from 20 to 45 students.

ACE Awards Scholarships to Promising Vietnamese Students

In 2007 ACE Life awarded 227 scholarships to poor yet outstanding Vietnamese students from low-income families who had excellent high school academic records and had achieved high marks in college and university entrance examinations. The donations were part of a scholarship program called “Cung Ban Vuot Song,” or “Crossing the Waves Together,” created to help motivate poor students to stay focused on education. Since the scholarship program’s inception in 2005, it has supported some 500 students with donations totaling VND1.2 billion.