Joint attempt to save children

Efforts made to reduce death rate among infants, promote health and nutrition

A Memorandum of Understanding for cooperation among Unilever, Save the Children, the China Development Research Foundation and the Meishan government of Sichuan province was signed in Beijing to jointly carry out pilot projects for mountain village kindergartens in Sichuan.

The move marked the official launch of the Early Childhood Development Program, part of Unilever's Everyone project.

Every year, more than 7 million children die of preventable diseases across the world. In 2009, Save the Children launched its "Everyone" program to save infant lives. The program aims to make sure that all countries can reach the United Nations Millennium Development Goal of reducing mortality rates among infants aged below 5 by two-thirds by the year 2015.

At the beginning of 2012, Unilever and Save the Children reached a strategic cooperation agreement under which the two sides would jointly carry out the Everyone program across the world in the next three years and would invest 1.8 million euros ($2.33 million) in China in projects that would promote infant health, nutrition and early childhood development in Beijing, Shanghai, Sichuan, Yunnan and Tibet. The Everyone program in China would directly benefit 20,000 children and 30,000 parents.

In order to better implement the Everyone program in China, Unilever and Save the Children, together with the China Development Research Foundation, launched the mountain village kindergarten project in Hongya county in Meishan, Sichuan province, in July 2012. The project, as part of the global Everyone program, covers various areas of early childhood development, such as education and health. It also evaluates policies concerning early childhood development and raises awareness of them among parents and the general public.

Pre-school education is provided mainly by the private sector and teaching and management capacity are yet to be improved. In view of the situation, the mountain village kindergarten project aims to improve pre-school education in Hongya through the recruitment of local voluntary teachers, the organization of the training of teachers, nutrition intervention and health education in kindergartens and the provision of equipment for kindergartens.

"Through the project, efforts would also be made to explore a workable model with safeguards for pre-school education in moderately developed rural areas," said Lu Mai, secretary-general of the China Development Research Foundation.

In addition to co-operation in the mountain village kindergarten project, Unilever also supports the China Development Research Foundation in its policy research, hoping that the pilot projects for mountain village kindergartens could help promote the formulation of national policies on early childhood development, which in turn would promote social justice and narrow the development gap between children in poor areas and those in cities and other developed areas.

Local governments also give strong backing by investing in early childhood development.

The mountain village kindergarten project in Sichuan won massive support from the local government. The Meishan government has pledged to invest 6 million yuan ($0.95 million) in three years as counterpart funds.

Meishan is a major exporter of labor. As a result, there are a large number of children who are left unattended. Early childhood education and development would lay a foundation for education at later stages and therefore bears special significance for the improvement of skills and ethical standards among the new generation of laborers.

"Early childhood education and development also provide a new line of thinking for the care of children left unattended by their parents who have to seek jobs in faraway cities," said Li Jing, secretary of the Meishan municipal committee of the Communist Party of China.

The mountain village kindergarten project would be very helpful in improving education in Hongya and in improving the ethical and educational standards of rural residents. The Meishan municipal CPC committee and the Meishan government will spare no effort in promoting the mountain village kindergarten project, Li said.

Unilever has provided help for children in poverty-stricken areas through various means since 2007. In recent years, 300,000 children and their families annually have benefited from Project Hope schools donated by Unilever China and programs sponsored by the maker of Lipton tea and Dove soaps, including the Let Dreams Fly volunteers initiative and activities to care for children left unattended by their farmer parents who have to seek jobs in distant cities.

The new Everyone flagship project aims to enable Chinese children to enjoy their childhood by helping improve their livelihood and living standards.

Unilever, in co-operation with the five international non-government organizations of Oxfam, Population Services International, Save the Children, UNICEF and the World Food Program, says it is committed to improving people's well-being through improved hygiene, clean drinking water, the acquisition of basic nutrition and improved self-esteem.

Unilever plans to double its businesses and at the same time reduce negative effects on the environment, creating greater social value. Unilever also hopes to help more than 1 billion people improve their health and well-being to increase sustainability.