Warum engagiert sich Henkel in gemeinnützigen Projekten? Welche Projekte sind das und wie werden sie ausgewählt? Wo auf der Welt leistet Henkel durch Spendenaktionen einen Beitrag zum Gemeinwohl? Wie viel Geld spendet das Unternehmen eigentlich pro Jahr? Antworten auf diese und andere Fragen rund um Henkel Smile finden Sie auf den neu gestalteten Internetseiten. Viele Videos, Fotos und Publikationen runden das Angebot ab. Unter anderem können auf einer Weltkarte Projektbeispiele angeklickt werden, die mit Text und Bild anschaulich dargestellt werden.

Hier geht es zum Internetauftritt:

www.henkel-smile.de

www.henkel-smile.com

“Raduga” is the Russian word for rainbow. And Raduga’s charity projects are as colorful as a rainbow: They offer integrative language courses, special guidance for women, theater projects for youngsters and much more… Really useful projects that Henkel is happy to support!

The bare statistics alone were shocking enough: 200,000 dead, innumerable people injured and two million Haitians homeless. The aid organization International Health Partners did not need to say much more in order to solicit – and receive – help from a great many companies, Henkel included. Henkel’s donation amounted to 20,000 euros (channeled via Henkel Friendship Initiative e.V. to the aid organization I.S.A.Rr) plus personal care products, household detergents and, especially useful, packs of wound adhesive, given to the organizations Humanplus, UNICEF and International Health Partners.

Now Henkel has received a letter of thanks from Alex Harris, Director of IHP International Health Partners, in which he states: “Without your kind support, much of our aid work would have simply not been possible”, plus a brief video.

Harris also states that further aid would be most welcome: “Only a very few houses have so far been rebuilt. And now we are entering the rainy season and in two months the hurricane season will be upon us.”

So – as Head of Henkel’s Donation Management team Sandra Lorch explains – for this among many compelling reasons, the MIT Children’s Projects Committee at Henkel has decided to make an extra budget available for children’s projects in Haiti. The Committee will shortly be making its final decisions on the funding applications received.

The focus of “Projekt Futurino” is on projects which enable children to learn more about nature and to acquire a better awareness of the environment while at the same time experiencing its fascination.

Have a look at some projects of “Projekt Futurino” (the video is in German):

With the support of Persil, the Leibniz-Gymnasium in Dormagen realizes the project “Solar energy – our chance for the future”: Sixth grade students get to know zero-emission technologies of the future and can apply their knowledge in photovoltaics and H2-Tecnique. The application for this project was submitted by a physics teacher of this school in fall 2009.

The kindergarten St. Franziskus in Wesel is delighted in the explorer room with two laboratory places which were enabled by “Projekt Futurino”. Many generations of future kindergarten children have the possibility to explore and experiment there. The objective is to understand chemical coherences and to gain first basic knowledge– for an overall interest in natural sciences.

Once a year a Henkel-jury decides on which MIT Children’s Projects will be supported. The applications of employees and retirees are discussed extensively, descriptions of several projects are worked through and at last it is decided on the amount of funding. Now, the MIT board met again in Düsseldorf and discussed hundreds of projects.

In the past year Henkel supported more than 2,200 charitable projects with a financial input of nearly 7.7 million euros (~11 million dollar).

An incredibly high number of 1,250 MIT-projects were realized worldwide by Henkel employees and retirees. 318 times Henkel granted a paid day off for the purpose of giving employees the possibility to spend time on their projects.

On seven occasions, Henkel provided financial support and in-kind donations in response to natural catastrophes. The company and its brands were also involved in 1,005 projects of their own.

In sum, the social engagement of Henkel, its employees and retirees in 2009 has served to improve the lives of over 500,000 people.

Dear Volunteers, Dear Colleagues,

On December 5 the world celebrates the International Volunteer Day for Economic and Social Development. On this occasion we would like to thank you – the Henkel employees who are doing voluntary work in all parts of the world – for your outstanding achievements.

May I express my appreciation to those of you who spend a great deal of your free time supporting the disadvantaged, serving the public good or helping people in need.

The significance of volunteering cannot be valued highly enough.

I am really proud to see the great dedication of all Henkel volunteers in 2009!

 You can either watch it in German

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B2v8jp-85O0

 or in Portuguese