New Jersey Nets superstar Yi Jianlian offers basketballs with his signatures as gifts to Tibetan students of Huanglong P&G Otto Hope School, in Sichuan province. File Photo

On a recent sunny morning, Tibetan children at a new playground at Huanglong P&G Otto Hope School played basketball with NBA superstar Yi Jianlian of the New Jersey Nets.

Many of the students probably did not know how popular Yi is, or what the NBA means, but they laughed, shrieked and ran across the playground built by employees of US-based Procter & Gamble Co (P&G).

"I admire Yi's stature (He's nearly 2.2 m tall.) and also his excellent basketball skills," said one student at the school in Songpan county in the Aba Tibetan and Quiang autonomous prefecture of Sichuan province.

"I wish one day I could play as well as him," the student said, his face glowing.

Huanglong P&G Otto Hope School, which has more than 200 students, was established in 2007 with donations from Charlotte Otto, P&G's former global external relations officer.

Today the school is a showcase for a P&G charity program in China that is building and renovating schools throughout regions of Sichuan province devastated by the May 12, 2008 earthquake.

The program is a partnership that includes P&G and its popular brand names, NBA China and the China Youth Development Foundation (CYDF).

The goal of this partnership is to build 20 P&G sports fields at Hope Schools in the region.

Retailers that are supporting the project include Wal-Mart, Trustmart, Beijing Hualian, Tesco, Watsons, Carrefour, RT-Mart and CR Vanguard.

For the next two months, these retailers will donate 0.2 yuan for the P&G sports field program for every P&G brand product purchased by consumers.

The products are Gillette, Head & Shoulders, Rejoice, Crest, Tide and Safeguard.

The 800 participating stores are located in Beijing, Shanghai, Shenzhen, Guangzhou and six other cities.

Each of the schools will receive sports equipment and facilities valued at 20,000 yuan.

"P&G is committed to providing quality products to our customers, and this project shows that we care, too," said Henry Karamanoukian, general manager for customer business development at P&G China.

Yang Dongwei, vice president of NBA China, said his organization is delighted to participate in the program.

"We want to provide the children in these earthquake-hit regions a way to experience more joy," Yang said.

At the Huanglong P&G Otto Hope School, basketball superstar Yi patiently coached the young students, winning smiles and repeated applause.

Leading the students, Yi's team handily defeated a team of P&G staff members in a five-minute basketball match.

"I'm so happy to see the brand new campus, basketball court and the cute children," said Yi, who has been named P&G Hope School Basketball Ambassador by the CYDF.

"I'm honored to make basketball fun for these growing children," Yi said following the five-minute match.

A Most Valuable Player (MVP) award was given to a 13-year-old student named Zedennimei.

After the game, the students wrote wishes on small cards and displayed them on a large board at the new playground.

"During the reconstruction of earthquake-affected regions, we should put an emphasis on reconstruction of children's homes and hearts, which is what P&G and its partners are doing," said CYDF Secretary-General Tu Meng.

P&G's Project Hope program and its partners will build 20 Hope Schools in Sichuan, Gansu and Shaanxi provinces and other regions by the end of 2010.

At those new schools, the program will fund the building of hand-washing facilities, music classrooms, computer labs and playgrounds.

This is the latest of several P&G-sponsored programs to build schools in China.

As of May, P&G had donated 49 million yuan to build 170 Hope Schools for more than 100,000 children.

Fifty of those schools have been named for P&G and its 25 business partners.

P&G's annual in-store Project Hope charity campaigns have attracted the participation of more than 323 million consumers.

(China Daily 08/03/2009 page10)