“We visited seven pavilions. My favorite was the Brazilian one – it had a huge football in it!” Wang Dongli, a fifth-grader at the “Bertelsmann Da Long Hua Hope School” in China, and three of his classmates were the lucky kids invited by Bertelsmann China for a one-of-a-kind experience: a visit to the Expo 2010 in Shanghai, the largest world fair ever. Together with their headmaster, they spent a full day – exhausting but exciting – exploring the Expo grounds: ”Spending a day at the Expo was an amazing experience. I can’t wait to go back to my hometown to tell my friends and classmates about this trip! ” Wang Dongli said happily.
His headmaster, Tong Rongxi was equally delighted with the trip: “ As headmaster, I’m happy that the kids got this opportunity to visit the famed Shanghai Expo ,” he said, adding that this sort of visit is more educational than just reading books because it visually demonstrates the development of science and technology and the development of the modern world.
Other Bertelsmann China and ‘Hope School’ projects
Annabelle Yu Long, Chief Executive of the Bertelsmann China Corporate Center, was happy to see how well received the invitation to the Expo was: “ As a world famous media and services group,” she said, “Bertelsmann strives to do everything it can to help the kids. In addition to financial donations, we sent thirty employees over to the Hope School last April to draw pictures, do crafts with the children, coach them in English and play badminton with them .” In June, Bertelsmann China also had several children’s book illustrators and writers visit the “Hope School” to teach them to draw and tell them stories. The aim of the Shanghai Expo visit was to “ give students an opportunity to go and see, feel and experience the world” says Yu Long.Various future projects are already in planning at the school in the Yi County region. In September there will be a drawing contest in which kids will be asked to draw their dreams on paper. Several of the drawings will then be selected to grace Bertelsmann China’s New Year’s cards.
At the end of 2008, several Bertelsmann companies in China, including Arvato, G+J, Fremantle Media, the local Corporate Center and the Bertelsmann Asia Investments fund, had donated a total of €25,000 plus in-kind gifts such as computers to support the Beijing Youth Development relief agency’s “Hope School” project with the local government. Most of the schoolchildren in Yi County, which is about 120 kilometers from Beijing, come from families who are too poor to be able to invest in their children’s education. Bertelsmann also sponsors another educational institution in China, Guangping Middle School in the Shaanxi region.
