(15 August 2013 – Hong Kong) New World Department Store China Limited (“NWDS” or the “Company”; Hong Kong stock code: 825), one of the largest owners and operators of department store in the PRC, collaborates with China Women’s Development Foundation and Children’s Hope Foundation for the first time and jointly organized “New Life‧New World” children fundraising walkathon in four cities, namely Beijing, Shanghai, Zhengzhou and Chengdu, on 3rd Aug. Nearly 640 children, NWDS volunteers and caring public have joined the walkathon. Together with the fund raised prior to the event, a total amount of RMB 70,000 would be donated to help children suffering from poverty, sickness and abuse.

The fundraising walkathon is the “@Sports-Hope Walkathon” piece of the “@Dream Sustainable Development Program”. It aims to encourage children to take part into philanthropic activities at an early age and take practical actions to render help and care to children in difficulties in order to nurture their sense of social responsibility. Starting from last month, Children’s Hope Foundation and NWDS started participant recruitment and fundraising activities in 17 NWDS stores across Beijing, Shanghai, Zhengzhou and Chengdu simultaneously. Parenting tips were given to the participants’ parents on how to guide children to care about others in a proactive manner. The fundraising walkathons were successfully held in the four relevant cities. On the event day, children and their parents got up early in the morning to reach the venue for final preparations. Putting on the smart T-shirts organizers especially made for the event, the mass surged into the starting line and began the walkathon. Numerous energy stations were set up along the route to recharge the participants with small gifts and stamp participants’ record cards to recognize their reaching of each milestone. Pedestrian were drawn to cluster around the route and supported the children with enthusiastic cheers. With the wide support from all walks of life, most children successfully finished the walkathon and were awarded a certificate as a token of recognition from the organizers.

All the fund raised from the event will be used to subsidy “Mother‧Children Hope Foundation” which is jointly established by China Women’s Development Foundation and Children’s Hope Foundation to help children suffering from poverty, sickness and abuse. Donation details will be published in Children’s Hope Foundation’s official website and welcome public enquiry and scrutiny. Ms Wang Ying, Regional General Manager, Second District of Northern China said, “To support the walkathon, many NWDS stores have displayed in-store promotional materials and donation boxes to facilitate fundraising. Our outlets are very powerful promotional platform, taking Beijing New World Department Store as an example, its foot traffic can go up to 500,000 a day. On top of that, NWDS stores helped to post threads in Weibo every day to enhance people’s understanding in the event. Many staff is proud of being a part of a Caring Company like NWDS. On the event day, many colleagues beat the hot climate with their enthusiastic hearts and acted as a volunteer to facilitate the smooth execution of the activity aiming every penny raised would go to the children in need.”

“@Dream Sustainable Development Program” is a brand new, sustainable community program that aims to provide under-resourced children in the mainland and Hong Kong with an unconventional learning platform that offers them knowledge outside textbooks as well as training opportunities. In addition, under the four themes of sports, music, learning and emotion, the moral, intellectual, physical, social and aesthetics development of the children will be nurtured; their visions will be broadened; and the realization of their seemingly untouchable goals will be given a helpful boost. The entire program will last for one year and be fully backed by some 1,000 NWDS volunteers. It is expected that as many as nearly 5,000 children will be benefited.

Ms. Rebecca Woo, Director of Corporate Affairs and Chairman of Sustainability Steering Committee of NWDS said, “The deep meaning of “@Sports-Hope Walkathon” lies on teaching the next generation to give and care about the society and others, as well as raising money for under-resourced children. We are especially moved to learn that many children made the donation from their own pocket money and got up so early in the morning to participate this meaning event. The fundraising walkathon is just a beginning, we hope that the“@Dream Sustainable Development Program” can be rolled out in other parts of China and extended its coverage to other areas to help children to realize their dreams, becoming the future of our society. In addition, I am pleased to announce that the Company has recently established its CSR Weibo account which is a powerful portal to disseminate corporate social responsibility information, further spreading the “caring society” spirit to the public.”

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