Siemens 2008 Annual Report Download - page 92

Education – The key to escaping poverty
In sub-Saharan Africa alone, approximately 45 million children do not attend school. As a result,
almost half the region’s young people grow up behind walls of poverty, discrimination and igno-
rance. The UN is now aiming to make primary education available to all the world’s children – girls
and boys alike – by 2015. To help achieve this goal, we’re supporting UNICEF’s Schools for Africa
campaign as part of our Caring Hands program. Since July 2006, the Company and its workforce have
donated some €650,000 to nance schools in Africa, giving many African children access to educa-
tion for the rst time. In addition, 1,200 Siemens employees are project sponsors, making regular
donations to help build schools, purchase school supplies and educate children.
Information opens the door to economic development
Another UN Millennium goal is to promote social and economic development by expanding access in
developing regions to information and communications technologies. Here, Nokia Siemens Networks
is helping with Village Connection Internet kiosks that provide people in remote rural areas, who are
often cut off from the outside world, with access to advanced communications tools such as voice,
SMS and Internet services. The kiosks also support economic growth in isolated regions by providing
the communications channels that local entrepreneurs need in order to set up their own businesses.
The Village Connection concept has already been successfully tested in India and Tanzania.
Improved healthcare worldwide
We’re fostering the UN goals with our healthcare technologies as well. A lack of qualied specialists is
often a problem in developing regions, where getting to a doctor or pharmacy is usually very time-
consuming and often more expensive for the patient than actual treatment and medication. Hospital
buses are just one of the solutions we’ve developed to enhance healthcare for patients in remote
areas of the globe. Equipped with devices for performing routine tests, X-rays, ultrasound examina-
tions, mammograms and electrocardiograms, these clinics on wheels provide professional healthcare
services to people in isolated regions. The air-conditioned buses carry their own water supplies and
generators, enabling them to operate even in areas where power and water connections are unavail-
able. Fifteen of our hospital buses – each capable of providing free, high-quality medical care to 500
patients a day – are already on the road in rural areas of India.
86 Fit42010 – Corporate Responsibility
Be responsible! was the motto of the employee corporate responsibility compe-
tition that we held once again this year. The winner – a team from OSRAM –
impressed the competition jury with a unique ecofriendly solution that delivers
lighting to off-grid communities. Some 1.7 billion people around the world lack
access to public power grids, and many of them rely on kerosene lamps to pro-
duce light. As a result, 77 billion liters of kerosene are burned every year for light-
ing purposes, releasing over 190 million tons of CO2 into the atmosphere – more
CO2 than Finland generates in an entire year. To tackle this problem, an OSRAM
team developed an off-grid solution – that is, one that operates independently of
the power grid. At its heart is an ecofriendly energy station where batteries for
energy-saving lamps and other electrical devices can be recharged at low cost.
In a pilot project, OSRAM set up energy stations in Mbita, Sindo and Nyandiwa
on the Kenyan side of Lake Victoria and in Nakifuma, about 45 kilometers west
Umeme Kwa Wote – Energy for All