Since 2001, a team of physicians and assistants travels to Nepal once a year, supported by MIT, to give children medical treatment. They have a little hospital with them, stethoscopes, medication, sensors, syringes, scales and first aid kits. Children are getting treated at schools, asylums or at the “Children Rescue Center” orphans’ hospital.

“Fundamind” is an institution that attends to about 100 children and their families, coming from the slums and impoverished neighbourhoods. The focus is on education of values and prevention of HIV/AIDA, Malaria, and other diseases. They also care for children with serious problems of under-nourishment, negligence, mistreatment and abuse.

This project is aimed at teaching children how to preserve wildlife and more specifically birds: Why, how and where? Experts demonstrate what everyone can do to protect the environment and with that to preserve a birds’ way of life. The aim is to make the children feel more responsible and respectful for nature and the environment. The project is open to all students from the village between the ages of 3 to 12 years.

After the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami, Henkel established a school for more than 90 boys and girls in Ranganathapuram, India. The boys are trained as carpenters, electricians, and other trades, and the girls are taught dressmaking and embroidery, but also how to use computers. All of the young people are also given a good general education. In 2008, training in eco-farming was started on the school grounds. Also in 2008, the school received official government approval as a training center.

Through the Henkel Friendship Initiative e.V., Henkel has donated a total of 150,000 euros to support victims of the May 2008 earthquake in China. After a first transfer of 50,000 Euros to the local Red Cross, Henkel supported the organization through 50,000 Euros worth of health care products, cleaning agents and building material. The third portion was given within the following two months to support sustainable projects to rebuild the village of Sichuan. The immediate help as well as the reconstruction aid was provided in close cooperation with the Red Cross and Henkel companies located in China (MIT projects).

In mid-2007, HFI e.V. provided immediate relief aid for earthquake victims in Peru. Within just a few minutes, the earthquake in the Ica region had destroyed everything for which the approximately 160,000 people living in Comamtrana and Ica had worked hard for years. In the middle of the poor supply situation, the funds provided by HFI e.V. made it possible to purchase vital food, which was generally in short supply.

December 2007: As the result of volunteer teamwork by Henkel employees in Düsseldorf and Peru, financial aid by HFI e.V. ensures the continued provision of supplies for the Mathilde Tellez children’s day care facility in Lima. The children, who are 3 to 4 years old and whose mothers are mainly underage as well, are given a hot meal here every day. A Christmas campaign conducted by Henkel employees also facilitated the “200 warm children’s feet” campaign, which provided socks and lined shoes for one hundred children.

To celebrate its centennial in 2007, Persil launched an initiative aimed at promoting educational, cultural and leisure activities for children and teenagers. In the anniversary year, mainly projects with focus on facilities for outdoor activities for children as well as musical, cultural, literary, and scientific projects were fostered with a total sum of one million Euros. The initiative was continued in 2008 with a contribution of 500,000 Euros. It concentrated on projects “enabling children to develop an awareness for nature, experience that feeling of fascination and understand, through play, why it is important to protect the environment,” explains Thomas Toennesmann, Head of Marketing Laundry & Home Care.

Henkel supports leukaemia patients by organizing blood typing drives. So it was about more than just fair play when the two local ice hockey teams DEG METRO STARS of Düsseldorf, sponsored by Henkel, and the ‘Cologne Sharks’ met in the ISS Dome in Düsseldorf. In collaboration with the ‘DKMS’ (German Bone Marrow Donor Database), Henkel and the DEG METRO STARS together instituted a campaign on behalf of patients suffering from leukaemia. About 250 of the 13,500 fans participated, allowing a small blood sample to be taken from them by Henkel medical staff before the match. Through collecting donations and organization on the actual date, also trainees and volunteers of the MIT initiative helped to make the event happen. Henkel and the DEG METRO STARS each financed half of the costs involved in the blood typing campaign. The collection proceeds totaled 16,500 euros. Even after the match, the activity was continued when Alexander Sulzer, one of the players, and fifty Henkel employees spontaneously decided to also have themselves registered as potential stem cell donors.

In Austria, blind and heavily sight impaired children reliant on special therapies receive expert help. For over 20 years now, the CONTRAST association at the Wiener Blindeninstitut (Vienna Institute for the Blind) has been concentrating much of its effort on early intervention programs for children of up to the age of six. More than 200 children are undergoing therapy in Vienna, Lower Austria and the Northern Burgenland region. Henkel provides financial support for the advanced training of the association’s professional therapy staff. “The support provided by the association receives for our early intervention center is phenomenal and incredibly important for the affected children and their families,” says Günter Thumser, President of Henkel Central Eastern Europe in Vienna.

Henkel Smile goes far beyond the sum of its three core elements, as they often mutually reinforce each other and generate synergies. An employee project in Kenya, for example, resulted in the engagement of the Schauma brand in cooperation with the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO). And the HFI’s emergency aid measures after the tsunami in the Indian Ocean in 2004 led to the development of numerous MIT projects. They are aimed specifically at rebuilding schools and infrastructure.