The Red Cross and Red Crescent Pavilion set up a charity fund on February 26 to support the operation and promotion of this pavilion as well as help ill or financially challenged infants, children and adolescents.

Beingmate Group Co. Ltd. and Soba become the Red Cross and Red Crescent Pavilion's strategic partners. [expo2010.cn]

During the opening ceremony in Beijing’s Great People’s Hall, milk powder manufacturer Beingmate Group Co. Ltd. and Beijing-based marketing company Soba signed up to become the Red Cross and Red Crescent Pavilion's strategic partners. Beingmate also donated to the fund.

Xie Hong, president of the Beingmate, was appointed as the honorary pavilion director during the ceremony.

The fund will start its first program by donating 200,000 yuan to the BTV Shuangsheng primary school in Shifang City in Sichuan Province, an area hit hard by the 2008 earthquake. The fund will award top students and donate to poor students.

Hua Jianmin (right), Vice Chairman of the Standing Committee of National People's Congress and president of the Red Cross Society of China, gives a medal of honor and a plaque of "universal love" to Xie Hong, president of Beingmate Group Co. Ltd. [expo2010.cn]

The school was set up by donations from Beijing Municipal Government and Beijing TV Station after the quake.

The Red Cross Pavilion and Red Crescent Pavilion is in the Expo site's Pudong area, neighbouring World Meteorological Organization's Pavilion and UN Pavilion. It has 324 square meters of exhibiting area, featuring theatres and interaction areas to interpret its theme of "Precious Life, Humanity without Borders.” The tour in the pavilion is expected to take 15 minutes. About 700,000 people are expected to visit this pavilion during the Expo’s 184 days.