Unremitting warm current may drive cold away. Recently, the warm currents sent by local branches of Industrial Bank (IB) in succession reached many poverty-stricken areas in Central and Western China.
“Brother, this bag is very beautiful. I like it very much!”,“Sister, thank you. I have a new pencil box at last!”...... In the middle of December 2012, when gifts including school bags and stationery were presented to the students of Nantuo Primary School of Ba'nan District, Chongqing, where a lot of kids are stay-at-home children, the childish cheerful utterances and big smiles touched the dozens of volunteers from IB Chongqing Branch. A volunteer surnamed He remarked in emotion that the kids of Nantuo had reached their shabby and dullish classrooms after more than an hour's journey on rugged paths over hills against the chilly wind while those in cities were still lying comfortably in their beds.
Books and clothes are necessary for these children to study and weather through the winter. At the end of December 2012, in Nangqian, a state-level poverty-stricken county of Yushu Prefecture, Qinghai, the students of No.1 Complete Primary School from poverty-stricken families and single-parent families received more than 300 winter clothes and more than 400 books mailed by employees of IB Guangzhou Branch from thousands of miles away. For years, IB Guangzhou Branch has kept close contact with relevant charity organizations in Yushu, making donation for school assistance there.
The quality of desks and stools has to do with the effect of study directly. The desks and stools were seriously damaged in Qiaoren Central Primary School of Kazakh Ethic Township and Xidiqiaozi Primary School of Uigur Ethnic Village of Qitai County, and Queergou Town Primary School and Shidizi Primary School of Hutubi County, Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region. After learning the news, President Yu Yuhui of IB Urumchi Branch immediately dispatched officers to the Education Supporting Foundation of Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region to learn detailed information. In December 2012, the branch donated 200 sets of desks and stools worth RMB 46,000 in total.
Not alone but in pairs, Xihezhai Primary School of Bayuan Town, Liantian County, Shaanxi Province, located deeply in Qin Ling Mountains, is one of the most shabby primary schools in the town. The desks and stools in the school were extremely poor. At the end of November 2012, the principal of IB Xi'an Branch took the initiative to make donation, which was responded actively by all employees of the branch. Representative employees of the branch delivered the 100 set of desks and stools and a large amount of stationery purchased with the donated money to the school.
The safety of school buildings always remains a matter that people care the most. Dege County of Sichuan Province, a remote and poverty-stricken placed populated by Tibetan people in the cold mountainous area, only registered a total of fiscal revenues of RMB 17 million in 2011. With poverty rate reaching as high as 44.9%, the buildings of rural primary schools were in pressing need of repairing. On December 7, 2012, IB Chengdu Branch made a poverty-alleviating donation of RMB 200,000 especially for transforming and expanding rural primary schools.
Moreover, it's better to teach a man how to fish than give him some fish. Therefore, the branch decided to carry out sustained direct poverty alleviation in the county, organizing “paired assistance” between employees and poverty-stricken Tibetan residents. In addition, it also brought into play the professional advantages of a bank and helped the poor with intelligence, and supported the county to train financial professionals and support the construction of hospitals in the Tibetan populated area and development of Tibetan medicine.
What have been mentioned above are only a few examples. As learnt by the reporter, as the forerunner and advocator of green finance and the first “Equator bank” in China, IB never forgets the source while drinking water. For years, it has always taken “social responsibilities and sustainable finance” as its core concepts and value directions. While pushing ahead China's emission reduction cause, the bank has also actively got involved in poverty alleviation and school assistance to give returns to the society. According to incomplete statistics, it has donated a total of more than 15 million for school assistance by the end of 2012.