Hyundai: Changing lives through football (video)

Hyundai, with Team Hyundai Ambassador Daniel Sturridge, are supporting the young unemployed through the streetfootballworld programme in the UK.

We know that Hyundai has made great strides in transforming the public’s perception of the Hyundai brand, and that’s down to great product and great PR. But good companies aim to put something back in to societies they profit from, and Hyundai is doing exactly that through football.

Now you may not think that footballers have any sort of social conscience (well, unless you consider ‘Social’ in the modern sense where endless footballers post inane witterings on social networks), but you’d be wrong. Certainly on the evidence of the film Hyundai has produced involving Chelsea and England player Daniel Sturridge.

Hyundai sent Daniel off to a Street League Academy at Wandle Recreation Centre in Wandsworth to hand over a cheque for €50k to help the work of streetfootballworld, which helps unemployed youngsters (one in five young people are currently unemployed in the UK) get focus and ambition through football.

The charity aims to help youngsters develop skills like communication, teamwork and goal-setting (no pun intended, we’re sure) through their passion for football, and even throws in stuff like CV-writing and mock interviews to help better equip those involved to find work.

Not only has Hyundai sent Daniel Sturridge to hand over the cheque (part of a total of €250k Hyundai is investing in similar schemes across Europe), they got Red Bee Media to produce a surprisingly inspirational film around the programme, and enlisted spoken word poet Polarbear to do the voice over. All rather trendy – but effective nonetheless.

You could argue this is good PR for Hyundai (which it is), that Daniel Sturridge is being paid by Hyundai (which he is, in one sense or another) and that Hyundai are getting in to the hearts and minds of future Hyundai buyers with their involvement (which they are). But that’s not the point.

The point is that Hyundai are putting something back, and doing it in an arena that can actually offer something constructive to young people struggling to find their place in a difficult world.

Which is a lot more than the State seems to manage in schools.

Update: We’ve added a second video below the ‘Trendy’ one which explains just how the streetfootballworld scheme works and inspires. It’s worth a watch.