BMW China and BMW Brilliance recently celebrated the fifth anniversary of the BMW Children's Traffic Safety Education program with the 2009 Kick-off Ceremony in Beijing.

Over the past five years, the program has had a tremendously positive influence on over 100,000 Chinese children by garnering support from a wide range of advocates.

Themed with "I'm A Little Traffic Safety Pioneer", the 2009 program plans to build Traffic Safety Theme Parks in 18 cities across China. More than 6,000 children from over 250 kindergartens will join the program at the Theme Parks to learn about traffic safety.

This year's program will also expand its benefits to children who lack sufficient educational support by incorporating a larger number of children from migrant worker families and community kindergartens.

Furthermore, in Chengdu, Sichuan province, with the support from the BMW Warm Heart Fund, a specially designed Warm Heart session will be held for children who were affected by the 2008 Sichuan earthquake. BMW plans to donate stationary, sports equipment and Traffic Safety chess games to the children to improve their environment and help them apply their newly acquired traffic safety knowledge.

"Since the program entered China, BMW's Children's Traffic Safety Education has been growing together with Chinese children and helped more and more of our children enhance their awareness by teaching them traffic safety knowledge. We also aim to get more adults focused on the importance of children's traffic safety and on their own behavior of adhering to traffic rules. Through the efforts that we have made, we believe that we can build a safer traffic environment for children," said Alfred Rupp, president and CEO of BMW Brilliance Automotive.

(China Daily 05/18/2009 page10)