Haier Will Build 51 Olympic Hope Schools

For each of the 51 Olympic gold medals won by Chinese athletes, Haier will build a primary school in China.

15 schools are to be built in Beichuan, the Sichuan county that was devastated by the May 12, 2008 earthquake.

Haier announced its "One Gold Medal, One Olympic Hope School" program in 2007. For each Chinese gold medal at the Beijing 2008 Olympics, Haier would build a primary school in China in partnership with Project Hope, a non-governmental organization sponsored by the China Youth Development Foundation. The organization aims at supporting education in China's poverty-stricken areas.

On the last day of the Beijing Olympics, China won two additional gold medals, bringing the total number to an impressive 51. In a brief ceremony at Haier's Experience Center in Beijing, the Company announced together with three Chinese weightlifting gold medalists the location of the 51 Olympic Hope primary schools. In addition to the 15 schools to be built in the earthquake's epicenter location in Beichuan county, Sichuan province, seven primary schools will be built in Haier's home province, Shandong. Others will be built all over the country, including Gansu, Tibet, Inner Mongolia, Xinjiang, Qinghai, Henan, Ningxia, Guizhou, Hainan, and Heilongjiang.

Haier has been a long time partner of Project Hope and contributed more than USD3 million in funds and USD19.56 million in materials for the Hope Project so far. By the end of 2007, Haier had built 77 primary schools in 24 provinces, allowing 40,000 students to return to school.

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