Project educates girls on safe passage to adulthood

Thirty-eight-year-old Wang Suzhen was deeply puzzled by some educational problems experienced by her 13-year-old daughter.

"I know my daughter is at the age of adolescence, an important period in her whole life. I know she has a lot of problems about her body and emotions. But I don't know how to help her," Wang said.

Like many parents of teenage children, Wang hoped to pilot her child through adolescence with a healthy body, healthy mind and good friendships.

With the aim of helping girls and their parents better deal with the educational problems of the adolescent period, the All-China Women Federation (ACWF) recently joined hands with US-based personal care product giant P&G's Whisper brand to launch the "Caring Adolescent Girls" project.

As one of the world's largest makers of sanitary napkins and women's personal-care products, the Whisper brand will support the 5-year education program, which will target over 1 million Chinese families.

Adolescents face a lot of changes to their bodies, minds, emotions and social relationships, said Deng Li, deputy director of the Department of Women's Rights and Interests of ACWF.

"However, for most Chinese parents, they don't know how to help their adolescent child deal with these changes, which will affect children's whole lives," Deng added.

According to a survey by ACWF, over 70 percent of Chinese parents had not educated their children about some of the problems specific to adolescence.

Rene Co, general manager of the external relations department, P&G Great China, said as a sanitary napkins maker, Whisper has a natural relationship with women, especially during that period when they transition from being a girl to being a woman.

"After entering China's market in 1991, Whisper has kept paying great attention to caring about women and adolescent girls. But as our business expanded in the local market, we also find that in most Chinese families, education for adolescent children is always a blind spot," Co added.

In the first phase of the Caring Adolescent Girls project (from September 2008 to March 2010), ACWF will launch educational programs in Beijing, Tianjin, Shanghai, Chongqing and Guangzhou.

Educational brochures for adolescent girls and their parents will be delivered to families in the five cities, covering nutrition and healthcare, emotional and mental health issues, legal problems and how to build healthy social relationships.

Following the first phase, the project will expand to 25 cities across the country until March 2013.

Through these educational materials, the project will help adolescent girls better develop self-esteem and essential life skills, Deng told China Business Weekly.

Co said Whisper brand would also launch the project in P&G's over 100 Hope Schools in China's rural areas.

He added that the Caring Adolescent Girls project not only relates to the philosophy of the Whisper brand, but is also a significant part of P&G's commitment to philanthropy in the Chinese market.

With the theme of "Live, Learn and Thrive", P&G has been establishing a platform for fulfilling corporate social responsibility and helping Chinese children up to the age of 13 in recent years, Co said.

Besides supporting Caring Adolescent Girls, P&G's Whisper brand also launched two Chinese web platforms under its company website, for providing personal care knowledge to girls at different ages.

"Being Girl", a web community of Whisper brand, was a platform to help girls aged 13-15 deal with adolescent problems.

Additionally, it also provided space for girls to keep diaries and share their questions with experts on the website.

"We are happy to see that a growing number of household product makers from both home and abroad care about people through their CSR projects," said Liu Xiaoping, director of the China Woman and Child Care Committee.

Such as one of P&G's major competitors, Johnson & Johnson, which has launched a group of projects in China concerning children to build its CSR image.

And Kimberly-Clark, the world's leading household paper products maker, has also organized projects in China for caring for babies.

"Under the global financial crisis, a remarkable tendency is that for companies in the household products industry, the CSR projects start to focus more on caring for people, include both consumers and employees," Deng added.

(China Daily 04/13/2009 page10)