‘Books For Asia’ Thanks Random House For 81,000 Donated Books And Audiobooks

Only days after the tsunami disaster on Dec 26, 2004, Douglas Bereuter, President of The Asia Foundation and a long-time member of the U.S. Congress, approached Elmar Brok, Senior Vice President Media Development at Bertelsmann, and the company’s Brussels office with a request for help. Bereuter explained that the Foundation’s "Books for Asia" program has been promoting reading all over the Asian continent for over 50 years– so what could be more natural than to approach the world’s largest publishing company to help with a relief campaign in the wake of the tsunami? Elmar Brok put Douglas Bereuter in touch with Random House CEO Peter Olson, and the first children’s books were soon on their way.

Recently, the Foundation evaluated its tsunami efforts and once more specifically thanked Peter Olson and Elmar Brok for the roughly 1,000 children’s books and 80,000 audiobooks on cassette and CD provided by the publishing company during this period. The books have already been distributed in Sri Lanka, Thailand and the Philippines. Random House’s generous audiobook donation was a great favourite and its children’s books are being avidly read. "This is a first for us for this kind of donation and it has been very enthusiastically received by our Asia country offices and by their various recipients," as Bereuter wrote in his thank-you letter. 

Apart from Random House’s donation to The Asia Foundation, Bertelsmann AG and its companies and employees also organized a number of donations, fund drives and campaigns for the tsunami victims. Bertelsmann AG donated one million euros to the SOS Children’s Villages relief organization as a specific fund. Its employees around the world donated another €200,000, which were then matched by Bertelsmann. In addition to the many donations made directly by the employees and businesses, Bertelsmann companies were involved in donation campaigns in many countries, which altogether generated an impressive €165 million. In particular, the donation drives of the RTL Group’s various radio stations and TV channels in Germany, Spain, the Netherlands and Belgium mobilized millions of viewers.