Growing Up Together with Chinese Children
BMW Celebrates Fifth Anniversary of its Children’s Traffic Safety Education Program with the 2009 Kick-off Ceremony in Beijin
(Beijing) On Thursday, BMW China and BMW Brilliance celebrated the 5th anniversary of the BMW Children’s Traffic Safety Education program at the 300-year-old Shouhuang Palace Square in Beijing Children Palace. Five 5-year-old children, who previously participated in the program, were invited to celebrate birthdays together with BMW at the ceremony. Mr. Alfred Rupp, President and CEO of BMW Brilliance Automotive Ltd., Mr.ZhaoXin of Beijing Traffic Administration Bureau, and Mr.Yuan Lixin of China’s Children Center attended the ceremony and kicked off the 2009 BMW Children’s Traffic Safety Education Program.
Over the past 4 years, the BMW Children’s Traffic Safety Education Program has had a tremendously positive influence on over 100,000 local Chinese children by garnering supports from a wide range of advocates. Themed, “I’m A Little Traffic Safety Pioneer”, the 2009 program plans to build Traffic Safety Theme Parks in 18 cities across China. More than 6,000 children from over 250 kindergartens will join the program at the Theme Parks to learn about traffic safety. Besides, this year’s program will expand its benefits to those children who lack sufficient educational support, by incorporating a larger number of children from migrant worker families and community kindergartens.
Furthermore, in Chengdu, with the support from the BMW Warm Heart Fund, a specially-designed Warm Heart session will be held for children who were affected by the 2008 Sichuan earthquake. BMW plans to donate stationary, sports equipment and ‘Traffic Safety’ chess board games to the children to improve their environment and help them apply their newly acquired traffic safety knowledge.
Since the program was launched in China 2005, the BMW Children’s Traffic Safety Education Program has progressed in teaching local children traffic safety knowledge through a variety of methods: BMW Traffic Safety Theme Park with a simulated traffic environment and puppet shows, Traffic Safety packages distributed to over 500 kindergartens and the BMW Online Children’s Traffic Safety Game Park. The activities have received high recognition not only from teachers and parents, but also from the government. Moreover, in 2008 both media and social research institutes voted the initiative as the “2008 China’s Innovative CSR Project” and “2008 Best CSR Case of Multinational Companies.” There is no doubt the program has successfully facilitated traffic safety education for children.
To celebrate the program’s 5th anniversary, BMW has invited well known pre-school education experts to create a “BMW Children’s Traffic Safety Clapping Song" as the program’s theme song for 2009. The aim is to bring traffic safety knowledge to more children by creating a catchy melody. From now on, BMW starts to recruit 10 children who represent 10 event cities to be theme song MTV actors via BMW official website (www.bmw.com.cn/csr ) . The MTV is also a birthday gift for the 5th Anniversary.
Mr. Alfred Rupp, President and CEO of BMW Brilliance Automotive said, “Since the program entered in China, BMW’s Children’s Traffic Safety Education has been growing together with Chinese children and helped more and more of our children enhance their awareness by teaching them traffic safety knowledge. We also aim to get more adults’ focused on the importance of children’s traffic safety and on their own behavior of adhering to traffic rules. Through the efforts that we have made, we believe that we can build a safer traffic environment for children. ”
As a leading global automotive product manufacturer, BMW is the first company to launch a professional road safety training program in the world since 1977. In China, the BMW Children’s Traffic Safety Education Program is the most important part of BMW Educational Support which is one of the four pillars of BMW Corporate Social Contribution Activities. Mr.Yuan Lixin of China’s Children’s Center said, “In the past 5 years, BMW’s continuous dedication to children’s traffic safety education has really been appreciated by the wider society. We’re happy to work together with companies like BMW, who really care and have a great sense of social responsibility in order to introduce such excellent programs as BMW’s Children’s Traffic Safety Education to more children across the country. ”
