Trafic safety education center helps fuel social responsibility

Northeast China's first permanent children's traffic safety education center opened in Shenyang, capital of Liaoning province, last week.

The center, which has been established by th German carmaker BMW, offers free entry to families so they can learn about road safety.

The BMW Children's Traffic Safety Education Experience Center will start accepting reservations from Sept 1 through its website.

"As an industry leader in corporate social responsibility, BMW has been committed to promoting children's traffic safety with all stakeholders," said Anton Heiss, president& CEO, BMW Brilliance Automotive Ltd, at the opening ceremony.

He said: "We are happy to see that we have made a real difference in building a safer world for Chinese children, and that is why we persist in running the traffic safety education program."

This year's program, which started in Beijing in May, has toured Shanghai and Hefei, capital of Anhui province, and more than 5,000 children and parents have participated.

The Traffic Management Research Institute of the Ministry of Public Security has joined the effort by helping with scenario setting and developing teaching aids suitable for children aged 4 to 9.

A toy bear character named An'an helps educate children and their parents in a range of events during the program. Interactive games are made to make both children and parents more aware of the dangers of road traffic, and to offer instruction on appropriate and safe approaches.

The center has nine sections - the An'an Traffic School, An'an Dollschat Club, An'an Innovation Club, An'an Train-the-Trainer Classroom, An'an Cinema, School Bus Safety Experience, Child Safety Seat Crash Simulator, Child Safety Seat Display Area, and Traffic Sign Learning Area.

Yang Meihong, vice-president of BMW Brilliance Automotive Ltd, said the program showed that traffic safety education was more effective when given to children rather than adults, as the children usually absorbed the knowledge via the interactions with an open mind.

Yang said: "The children might not understand the traffic safety rules if just told them, but they remember them after experiencing them here in the center.

"The kids help the adults to follow the safety guides, by correcting their parents and 'supervising' the adults."

The experience center is also a new base for adults to experience and thoroughly understand sustainable children's traffic safety education, in which parents and children are able to enjoy innovative programming and well-designed interactions all year round.

For example, about 90 percent of Chinese parents believe that cradling children in their arms is the safest way to transport them in a car - which is wrong.

But after seeing and experiencing the Child Safety Seat Crash Simulator, every parent will remember that his or her arms can never hold a 10-kilogram stuffed bear in a collision even at a relatively low speed of 20 km/h, not to mention in a car traveling much faster.

The BMW Children's Traffic Safety Education, or BMW CTSE, has been running successfully for 12 years, with the philosophy of success, responsibility and innovation.

New platform

The center serves as a new corporate social responsibility platform for all BMW stakeholders, including dealers, car customers and especially company associates, to make social contributions and fulfill their commitment to the community as a good citizen.

The volunteering efforts not only offer strong support for BMW's CSR, but will also further inspire more people to give back to society.

Yang said: "We are trying to promote this education nationwide, starting from stakeholders. As long as the stakeholders receive good education on children's traffic safety, they will influence more people."

The Shenyang-based BMW Brilliance has recruited 38 volunteers internally from associates as CTSE ambassadors to support the program, as well as toolkits which are prepared for dealers who voluntarily operate smaller-scale programs locally.

Heiss said: "We firmly believe that an excellent corporate citizen should not only have prominent business strength, but also take account of stakeholders in order to drive the industry's development and boost society's unceasing progress."

haoyan@chinadaily.com.cn

BMW CTSE milestones

2005

BMW begins delivering its Children's Traffic Safety Education program in China tochildren aged 4 to 9, making it one of the first carmakers to engage in CSR projects in the country.

2006

Children's traffic safety education booklets are distributed nationwide through BMW's dealers.

2008

Children's traffic safety toolkits are developed jointly with well-known early childhood education experts; the kits are given out to 500 kindergartens in 10 cities.

The number of beneficiaries of the education program hits 100,000.

2010

BMW Trafic Safety Education Booklets for Primary Schoolchildren are published in cooperation with the Ministry of Education.

A total of 300,000 booklets are handed out across the country.

2013

The 52-episode children's traffic safety education cartoon series, An'an's Story is broadcast on TV.

2015

Start of the An'an Train-the-Trainer Classroom, which aims to develop more children's traffic safety specialists and train qualified lecturers.

2016

The BMW CTSE program features comprehensive innovations entering its 12th consecutive year.

Aug 2016

The Children's Traffic Safety Education Experience Center begins operations in Shenyang, Liaoning province.

The CTSE program tours 63 cities nationwide, benefiting more than 390,000 Chinese people.

(China Daily 08/30/2016 page15)