(Wuhan) 2008 BMW Children's Traffic Safety Education Program arrived at Wuhan Children & Youth's Palace, bringing the children here a lively traffic safety lesson in the life-like traffic environment at the Traffic Safety Theme Park. Wuhan is the ninth leg of the ten-city event this year. In mid November, 2008 BMW Children's Traffic Safety Education will conclude at its last stop – Beijing, where a grand closing ceremony will be held. 2008 is the fourth successive year that BMW has held the children's traffic safety themed program. Mr. Li Long, Head of Middle Region, BMW and Ms. Wei Jing, Vice-Secretary of Wuhan Commission of Communist Youth League of China, attended Wuhan relay banner handover ceremony.
On the spot in Wuhan Children & Youth's Palace, wearing safety helmets and under the guidance of professional trainers and teachers, children participated in the role play game of "policemen and drivers". In addition, through interesting puppet show of ‘Crossing the Road Safely' and ‘Traffic Safety Chess', children acquired knowledge of traffic safety in laughter and happiness. Especially worth mentioning is that all the trainers invited by BMW are childhood education experts. Among them, some hold the tile of kindergarten head and have been dedicating to pre-school education for over 20 years; some also hold the qualification for professional children's psychologist in China.
With the theme "Use Zebra Crossing When Going over Street" and in cooperation with China Children's Center, BMW will set up Traffic Theme Parks at local Children's Palaces throughout 2008. Over 3200 Chinese children from over 100 kindergartens will benefit directly from the program through participation to the training session. So far, the 2008 BMW Children Traffic Safety Education has been successfully held in 8 cities, including Hangzhou, Shanghai, Wenzhou, Shenyang, Shenzhen, Guangzhou, Xiamen and Chengdu.
In 2008, in order to involve more children into traffic safety education, through cooperation with China's famous pre-education experts, BMW has prepared "Traffic Safety Packages" and will distribute them to 500 kindergartens all over the country, increasing the number of children who can benefit from this program to 100,000 this year. On Children's Day this year, BMW also launched an ‘Online Children's Traffic Safety Game Park' to bring ‘Children's Traffic Safety Education' to every household. Apart from acquiring traffic safety knowledge, online participants have a chance to participate in a live ‘Children's Traffic Safety Program' event through a lucky draw.
BMW has always been actively motivating more social forces, including BMW dealers, to be involved in the concrete actions for its corporate social contributions. Starting from this year, apart from the activities held in children & Youth's palace in 10 cities, BMW Children Traffic Safety Education Program has also been carried out by BMW authorized dealers across the country, benefiting over 2,000 children from 65 kindergartens. The dealer-level activities have greatly increased the number of children all over the country who can have chance to accept necessary traffic education. Up to now, 26 dealers across the country have launched children traffic safety education programs featured with their own characteristics, such as "To Get to Know the Traffic Signs" and "Parents-Children Interactive Traffic Safety Chess". It is reported that there are 20 more dealers who are actively planning and preparing for the children traffic programs in November.
Mr. Li Long, Head of Middle Region, BMW made the following remarks at the relay banner handover ceremony in Wuhan, "As a responsible Corporate Social Citizen, BMW has been dedicated in cultivating good habit of adhering to traffic rules and enhancing children's awareness of self-protection. After four successive years of devotion, BMW Children's Traffic Safety Education Program has become an indispensible part of BMW's China Corporate Social Contribution Activities. In the future, we will cooperate more closely with education departments at all levels, encourage dealers, customers and more social forces to promote children's traffic safety education, continuously increase the number of benefited children and to hold up a safe sky for our children."
Ms. Wei Jing, Vice-Secretary of Wuhan Commission of Communist Youth League of China also said, "BMW has been carrying out the children's traffic safety themed program for years and has been warmly received by people from all walks of life, especially children's parents. Keeping children safe from potential traffic dangers requires not only the care of parents, but also scientific teaching methods from our social environment. BMW has absolutely set up a good example in this respect."
As a world leading automotive product manufacturer, BMW is the First Automaker to Launch Professional Road Safety Training Programs. As an important part of BMW Corporate Social Contribution, since being launched in 2005, BMW Children Traffic Safety Education has resulted in very positive feedback from government and other groups of our society. In addition, BMW has also been carrying out other long-term and sustainable corporate social contributions activities, such as "BMW China Culture Journey", as well as BMW Excellent University Students Award Fund. In June this year, BMW also contributed 10 millions RMB to set up BMW Warm Heart Fund with China Charity Federation, in order to provide long-term support to the reconstruction work of Sichuan earthquake affected area and to provide a platform for other warm heart activities.
