Some 18 percent of the world’s population has no access to clean drinking water. “This is a major problem in Africa. Many wells are not working, and it is urgent for new ones to be built,” according to retirees Dr. Amat Kane and Hartmut Schanz from Düsseldorf. As Senior Experts, they have been engaged for years in many projects in Africa, including the “Water and Education for Senegal” initiative. In the community of Patar, they helped to organize the extension of an elementary school and the construction of a new well. With Henkel’s support, a new well has been built that saves the villagers from having to walk 2.5 kilometers to get water. Building work on the school is to be carried out in 2009.

In 2008, Henkel supported the “Water Quality on the Rhine and Yangtze” school project, that was organized collaboratively by a Düsseldorf school and its sister school in Chongqing, China. It taught pupils a great deal about water and environmental protection – by comparing the water quality of the two rivers, for example – as well as about the foreign culture of their project partners.

The Association of Young Débrouillards of the Czech Republicic (débrouillard is French for ´smart, curious`) invites children to partake in an educative contest of knowlegde. The children have to accomplish difficult tasks and to show and broaden their knowledge. Some of the tasks and answers in the area of ecology and chemistry were prepared by volunteering Henkel employees. The winners will participate in the European children´s program “Space Two” – together with children from all over Europe they will form the crew of a children´s space shuttle and “fly” to the Euro Space Center in Belgium.

The Danube Delta biosphere in Romania is the world´s third largest biological reserve. The ongoing contamination of this unique area arising from the careless disposal of industrial and household waste constitutes a hazard for the conservation of the flora and fauna of the region. Henkel Central Eastern Europe together with the Romanian organization “Danube Delta Biospere Biological Reserve” has brought into beeing the initiative  “Gemeinsam für ein sauberes Donau Delta” (Working together for a cleaner Danube Delta). Henkel is financing special recycling containters that are being placed in the communities and tourist regions to enable selective garbage separation. Aside from helping the ecosystem itself, these activities do promote crossboarder solidarity – the inhabitans of the Delta are learning to take responsibility for maintaining their environment.

Those who appreciate nature also want to protect it. This is one of the principles adopted by the Girl Guide movement of Bookham and Effingham in the county of Surrey to the southeast of London. Alan Wilson of Henkel Limited is one of the volunteers who help the approx. 300 girl guides aged 13 to 16 that belong to the troops in the area. He explains: “The girls have organized themselves into 13 troops, and each troop meets once a week in the same guide hut. This is an old wooden building which is in a constant state of disrepair. Last year we urgently needed a new roof for the hut. To my delight, Henkel was willing to bear the cost.” Alan Wilson and his employees collect donations at every opportunity so that the girl guides can all go together on a camping adventure abroad once every three years. Last time, at the spring camp in Adelboden, Switzerland, Alan went along as one of the organizers. “The girls really enjoyed their time in the mountains,” reports Wilson. “A camp like this in foreign parts is ideal for strengthening team spirit and gaining good experience with regard to getting along both with one another and with the local people of the region.”

Henkel has made a donation in order to help the inhabitants of the Greenfields Estate in Winsford, Cheshire, to convert an unused piece of land in the center of their residential area into parkland. By way of thanks, many children from the estate took part in improving the appearance of the entrance to Winsford Industrial Park where Henkel Limited has a production center. The children, who had already participated in various garbage clean-up and planting campaigns, sowed innumerable bulbs along the green verge bordering the entrance. The company is also involved in improving the quality of life of the people in another residential area of Winsford. Together with state and community organizations, Henkel Limited has financed a range of security measures to protect a children’s playground on which previously youths constantly drove their stolen cars.
Cars have even been set alight on the playground a number of times. In March, a cordon of firmly concreted bollards was placed around the playground preventing access to road vehicles. The playground is to be completely renovated by the summer, and here too Henkel Limited has undertaken to pay some of the cost.