AMMAN, Jordan October 23, 2012

Visa, one of the world's leading payment solutions providers, has partnered with Madrasati to collaborate on their shared vision to create a safer, brighter and inspiring learning environment for the youth of today.

Madrasati was launched in 2008 by her Majesty Queen Rania with the aim of reaching out to 500 public schools in Jordan with 250,000 students in the upcoming five years. With corporate social responsibility being at the core of Visa's community commitments, they partnered with Madrasati to renovate the Hai Al Saleh Elementary School in Irbid.

To celebrate this cooperation, an event was held at the school today in the presence of Visa, Madrasati, and school representatives as well its 100 students.

Reinforcing Visa's commitment to financial literacy, a reading session was hosted during the day where the youth were introduced to financial basics through the Visa and Marvel collaboration comic The Avengers: Saving the Day.

Combining Marvel's iconic super-hero characters and Visa's experience in financial education, Spider-Man, Iron Man, Thor, Hulk and other members of the Avengers team take young readers on an action-packed mission tackling daily money matters. While the team takes on Mole Man and his evil henchmen, Iron Man shows Spider-Man the art of budgeting so that he can buy his aunt a birthday gift.

"Visa's corporate responsibility programs helps ensure that we live up to our obligations to our customers, shareholder and employees while also positively impacting the lives of those in our local and global communities", commented Ali Abdel Jabbar, Visa's Country Manager Jordan.

"As a global payments technology company, we see one of the most valuable contributions we can make as helping to bring more people into the formal financial system. We do so by creating pathways to financial inclusion for the financially underserved through our products, services, technology, and payments expertise; financial literacy tools and resources; and our strategic partnerships", he added.

Dana Dajani, Madrasati Director added: "Madrasati brings together businesses, non-governmental organizations, and communities, as well as the Ministry of Education, to rejuvenate schools in need. Attending school should be a memorable mixture of experiences, learning and laughter, nurturing and increasing independence, and enjoying today while planning for tomorrow."

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About Visa
Visa is a global payments technology company that connects consumers, businesses, financial institutions and governments in more than 200 countries and territories to fast, secure and reliable digital currency. Underpinning digital currency is one of the world's most advanced processing networks--VisaNet--that is capable of handling more than 20,000 transaction messages a second, with fraud protection for consumers and guaranteed payment for merchants. Visa is not a bank and does not issue cards, extend credit or set rates and fees for consumers. Visa's innovations, however, enable its financial institution customers to offer consumers more choices: pay now with debit, ahead of time with prepaid or later with credit products. For more information, visit www.corporate.visa.com.

About Madrasati
Madrasati ("my school" in Arabic) is a groundbreaking program to improve the quality of education in 500 disadvantaged public schools throughout Jordan.

At the heart of Madrasati, is a simple concept: it's about sharing responsibility for our children's education.  Madrasati brings together businesses, non-governmental organizations (NGOs), communities, and the Ministry of Education, with parents, teachers, and pupils in pursuit of one common goal: rejuvenating schools in need.

Since its launch in Jordan, in April 2008, Madrasati revitalized 500 public schools and lifted the lives of over 110,000 students.

Contact:
Mavis Addington
Impact Porter Novelli
Tel: +961 1 337 666
E: M.addington@ipnbeirut.com.lb

© Press Release 2012