We understand being active and healthy as one of the key factors of success in our company. Many MIT children’s projects around the world also prove the fact that sports can improve self-esteem and creativity among children and youths. Therefore sports play an important role in bringing people together and enjoy life. In the Henkel Smile program Henkel focuses on popular sports which attract many people.

Preventive health care is also a top priority at Henkel. Moreover, in the globalized world we notice an increasing number of people who are ill but cannot afford any medical treatment. Therefore Henkel supports projects to institutionalize a basic medical care. Throughout the world, Henkel supports projects involving the care, treatment, protection and rehabilitation of people.

Good sight is not inherent but needs to be practiced. Most children practice their sight in every-day life without further encouragement, but young children suffering of visual impairment urgently require special education and encouragement. Henkel Central Eastern Europe and Henkel Smile therefore support Contrast, a foundation that aids blind, partially sighted and dual sensory impaired children aged 0 to 6 in Austria, with a special charity project in collaboration with the Austrian football league: a gigantic Henkel Smile football shirt is put up in the stadions on which football fans can sign in favour of Contrast. For every signature, Henkel donates one Euro.

The Instituto Especializado De Salud Del Niño, the National Institute Specialized in Childrens Health in Lima, Peru, is the most important attention center for Peruvian children with lung deseases. Since 1999, there has been a shockingly increase of tuberculosis patients with resistance to the medical treatment. Due to a high risk of infecting others, these children need to be isolated. Thanks to the help provided by Henkel, the first accommodation pavilion for the little medicine resistant tuberculosis patients was built in 2006.

It is very difficult for children to enjoy life when they are in hospital for a long time. To help these children overcome their stress from medical treatment and take their mind off the pain, the project “Clowndoctors” was started. Specially trained actors dressed up as clowns regularly visit the Faculty Hospital for Children in Bratislava, Slovenia, to play with the children.The Clowndoctor´s activities were received enthusiastically by the children. Because of the great success of this wonderful project, Henkel Slovensko wanted to enable the Clowndoctors to spread their activities to other Slovenian hospitals. Therefore, Henkel decided to support the Clowndoctors financially and with presents for the children such as balloons, T-shirts and product packages.

Henkel in Turkey aims at making the life of children who have to be in hospitals a little easier. One project is carried out in the city of Gaziantep. In the hospital of Gaziantep new-born babies and especially premature infants often have to share the same medical equipment. This means a high risk for their health due to infections. Henkel has provided funds to purchase new equipment, such as a new incubator. Another Henkel Smile project in Turkey consists of donating toys to children´s hospitals.

Henkel Korea provides a swimming course for children with autism from low-income families by donating a fund to Welfare Center of the Disabled in the Soedaemun District. Water is a playing media that can be easily accessed by autistic children and swimming is proved to be effective for their emotional development and improvement of sociability and patience. The swimming lessons will help the autistic children to improve their physical functions and to interact more easily with their fellow beings. In addition to the financial donation, Henkel employees regularly attend the swimming classes to take care of the children during class.

Henkel Turkey has supported TESEYEV, the Turkish fund for Invalid Sport and Education, with the help of Pritt and Duck, the leading adhesives brands in Turkey. In the past two years, Henkel has donated around 100,000 euros to TESEYEV, which champions equal opportunities and the integration of disabled people in Turkey. In particular, it supports participation in sports activities as a means of promoting the self-confidence and improving the quality of life of the disabled. Henkel´s donations have helped to realize the country´s first national championships for disabled sportsman an women as well as to fund projects like a wheelchair tennis course for beginners and a wheelchair soccer tournament, and an orchestra. In addition, many Henkel Turkey employees made important personal contributions by helping to organize sports events.

The “Flying Doctors” are well known in many countries around the world. They deliver medical assistance in the sparsely populated regions of Australia. In addition, they provide a wide range of support services for the aborigines, particularly with respect to health care for their children. They are helped in this respect by Annette Matthews, Lauren Johnston and Eberhard Buse of Henkel Australia. “Since 2003, Henkel Australia has been providing financial support for several projects that we have organized together with the Flying Doctors,” reports Lauren Johnston from the HR department of the company. “Annette Matthews, Eberhard Buse and I are responsible for collecting the ideas and project-managing the ensuing activities. Among other things, we have ensured that aborigine women and girls are visited by a female doctor, as many of them are unwilling to have a man examine them.” The lady GP (general practitioner) also looks after mothers-to-be, of which some of them are still teenagers.

Together with other helpers, George Pereira, an employee at Henkel Malaysia, supports the inmates of Kajang Women’s Prison. In December 2004, when he visited the jail accompanied by a pediatrician and a midwife, he encountered 50 pregnant or nursing women plus 18 children younger than three years old. As ever, the helpers brought large quantities of baby food and vitamin supplements.The cost of this was largely borne by Henkel Malaysia. “Until now I have always brought these things in the supermarket with a bulk discount,” reported Pereira. “But after the prices increased substantially, I wrote to various pharmaceutical companies asking for preferential prices. And I have already received a number of promises from them.”

The Mexican peninsula Ambergris Caye is a highly popular holiday paradise. However, for the local inhabitants, life is far from Utopian, some are so poor they cannot afford to visit the doctor regularly. There is, however, some relief available in the form of the “Ambergris Hopes Clinic” in San Pedro, the only major town on the promontory. This medical outpost, which has been supported by donations from Henkel Mexicana for many years now, specializes in the treatment of babies and toddlers. At the beginning of 2005, Kirsten Figge, at the time still an employee of Henkel Mexico visited the clinic. “The two doctors, Daniel Gonzales from Belize and Tina Kokkins from Germany, examine anyone and everyone who needs medical help,” she reports. Kirsten Figge, who in the meantime has returned to Henkel in Düsseldorf, left her Mexican colleagues with the supplication that they should continue to support the clinic. At this time, what it particularly needs is money: for consumables and medical equipment. In addition, the doctors want to build an extension so that they can also look after ill patients requiring expert care in the clinic overnight.