Corporate Citizenship Activities In China

In celebration of the Universal Children’s Day on November 20, Bertelsmann China Corporate Center opened an exhibition in the Chinese capital Beijing that highlights some of its corporate citizenship activities in China.

The 10-day exhibition called “Yuan-Yuan Children’s Creative Art Education Celebration” focused on a small collection of artwork created in a series of free art lessons for children hosted by the Bertelsmann China Corporate Center in the year to date. In addition to these, there were small plays performed by children, craft lessons, storytelling sessions and multimedia corners presenting apps with interactive fairytales.

One of China’s most influential online portals, sina.com, promoted th’se “Yuan Yuan” exhibition on its children’s education channel, which encouraged hundreds of parents and kids to apply for participation in the exhibition on-site activity lessons via “Yuan Yuan” micro-blog, a kind of Chinese twitter launched by the Corporate Center in Beijing.

Guests included representatives from local Chinese NGOs, children’s educational institutions, publishers of children’s books, and the German Embassy and German Book Information Center. Executives from Bertelsmann units in China, such as arvato China, arvato Systems China, arvato APAC, Random House China and G+J China, attended to show their full support for the local CSR project.

“‘Yuan Yuan’ means far-reaching, caring from a distance but with a lasting effect,” said Annabelle Long, explaining the name of the exhibition. “As a culture and media company, we feel a commitment to contribute our content resources and social networks to society in the area of education. Art instruction is very important to the development of creativity in children, and has a far-reaching positive effect on children’s lives.”

In addition to the “Yuan Yuan Children’s Creative Art Education Celebration”, Bertelsmann China Corporate Center also jointly organized a professional salon with children’s book publishers as well as local kindergartens, training institutes and NGOs. The professionals shared their experiences in the area of children’s art education and explored the options for an integrated approach to providing high-quality, free lessons to more communities and children who otherwise have no way to access such instruction and resources.