Winning ways

Personal care, cleaning and detergent giant Procter & Gamble (P&G) is helping 101 Chinese teachers from 28 provinces to learn how to help their students clean up when it comes to sports knowledge and training.

P&G's Hope School program is the largest charitable education project in China and works with the State-run China Youth Development Foundation (CYDF).

Hope School is engaged in improving educational and physical fitness conditions of primary school students in rural areas.

The 10-day sports training program was held between February 25 and March 5 and was aimed at enriching sports knowledge and teachers' abilities to coach and organize athletic games independently for their students.

As part of the program, the teachers underwent a customized training curriculum taught by experienced trainers from Beijing Normal University's School of Physical Education and Sports Science, and the Beijing Institute of Education.

This program initiative was also meant to pave the way for the National Project Hope Fun Sports Games organized by CYDF and the Western China Project Hope Fun Sports Games sponsored by P&G in May this year.

In a Hope School survey report released by CYDF in 2007, nearly 20 percent of the students did not know where the 2008 Olympic Games will be held and about half of them had no idea what the Games mascots are. This reflected the underdeveloped physical education conditions in poverty-stricken rural areas across China, where many Hope Schools are located.

P&G has supported 131 Hope Schools across China since its participation in Project Hope more than a decade ago.

(China Daily 03/17/2008 page8)