FAW Toyota China’s charity program “Lighting up Dreams” recently provided left-behind children at Dukezong Primary School in Shangri-La, Yunnan Province, with items such as schoolbags. In addition, the company donated 600,000 yuan ($94,280) to the “Scarab Dream Fund” which aims to care for left-behind children in rural areas.
Dukezong Primary School is located in an area with a large number of ethnic Tibetans, and the school is the 10th that “Light up Dreams” has supported since 2019. Zhong Wen, the company’s director of public relations, said, “Toyota is an automobile brand that drives its business by realizing social values, and it is our goal to be a socially-responsible corporation.”
Celebrities including “Scarab” Liu Chunyan (host of a famous children’s show), Olympic champion Sang Xue, former men’s basketball champion Liu Yongjun, Chinese Model Flying Association members, and artist Xu Tao joined the event to talk to the children. Toyota also surprised the children by inviting their parents, many of whom work in far-away cities and don’t return home much.
Ito Tsuki, deputy director of FAW Toyota’s planning department, said, “Yunnan has the largest number of ethnic minority groups in the world. Paying attention to the growth of young people from ethnic minority backgrounds is also an effective way to promote the sustainable development of ethnic minority areas.”
In addition to education programs, the car company has also paid close attention to public welfare undertakings such as environmental protection and road safety. Since 2008, the firm’s China Family Traffic Safety Education Program has reached out to 1 million families in 15 provinces across the country. And Toyota’s volunteer tree planting activities have so far involved 2,800 participants who have planted more than 8,000 trees.
