SOCIAL RESPONSIBILITY

HELPING LOCAL KINDERGARTENS

At OTTO FUCHS, social engagement starts duringvocational training. Here, we focus among other things on supporting local educational facilities. We set great store by dialog with local kindergartens and schools with a view to realizing projects with them that children and young people will benefit from. Among other things, we get significant input here from our apprentices who assume social responsibility on their own initiative. For example, in spring 2017, 20 apprentices from the first year of training helped tidy up and maintain the outdoor areas of four kindergartens in Meinerzhagen. As part of the campaign, the junior employees also performed minor repairs on the vehicles belonging to the facilities. There are plans to conduct similar campaigns in the region annually.

RUNNING FOR SOCIAL REINTEGRATION
The self-help program Homeboy Industries helps delinquents in the USA find their feet in society once again. As part of the annual Homeboy Industries 5K & Festival charity event, Weber Metals employees collect money to be donated to the project. In addition to a 5,000-meter run, this involves a live event featuring local musicians and artistes. The proceeds are put toward psychological counseling centers, further education measures, and job mediation services for underprivileged young people.

BAKING CAMPAIGN FOR THE BALTHASAR CHILDREN’S HOSPICE
As the first facility of its kind in Germany, the Balthasar children’s hospice in Olpe supports terminally ill children and adolescents and their families on their joint journey. OTTO FUCHS employees came up with the idea of supporting the hospice with a donation drive in the run-up to Christmas. Apprentices in their first and second years of training therefore baked and sold waffles to their coworkers, visitors, and customers at the Meinerzhagen site. A donation made by OTTO FUCHS KG shareholder Otto Hinrich Fuchs doubled the proceeds from around 3,220 euros to 6,500 euros, which were presented to the Balthasar children’s hospice on December 18, 2017.

A MEAL A DAY
South Africa’s education sector is facing some major challenges. Little investment, a shortage of qualified teaching staff, and a low proportion of young people moving on to academic studies are just some of the sector’s problems – and these have serious consequences for the country’s social and economic development. To give children access to education from a very early age, Foxtec-Ikhwezi champions improvements in early childhood development. Together with the international hunger relief organization Rise Against Hunger, our site in East London supports early childhood development centers (ECDC) in the Border Kei region with donations of money and food. In September 2017, Foxtec-Ikhwezi employees helped to pack some 5,000 food parcels for distribution to the centers. These parcels make it possible for 19 children to be provided with a meal a day for a whole year. The plant additionally made a donation of 10,000 rand (approximately 690 euros). Foxtec-Ikhwezi also supported an initiative that helps train early childhood
practitioners with a separate donation of 200,000 rand (approximately 13,800 euros).

NATIONWIDE STUDENT FUNDING
The Deutschlandstipendium grant introduced by the German federal government in 2011 is founded on the idea of acknowledging excellent student achievements and nurturing tomorrow’s skilled workers. OTTO FUCHS contributes to the comprehensive funding program and gives young people the opportunity to study for a bachelor’s or master’s degree in a variety of disciplines irrespective of their social backgrounds. To this end, we make 150 euros available per beneficiary per month, with this sum then being matched by the government. Monthly funding of 300 euros was awarded to two students at Cologne University of Applied
Sciences and two students at South Westphalia University of Applied Sciences on this basis in 2017.