Wärtsilä Corporation, Press release 29 January 2002
In December 2001 Wärtsilä organized a charity collection for the Children’s Hour campaign at its units in Finland which amassed EUR 43,000. The idea was for employees to donate one hour of their salary while Wärtsilä itself donated the same sum of money collected by its employees.
The collection was organized in co-operation with the Finnish Children and Youth Foundation (Slns). The funds collected will be donated in Finland and abroad to projects designated under the campaign. In Finland these are the Kustaala care home in Vaasa, the children’s cancer ward of Turku university hospital, and the children’s afternoon club of the Imatra Liikuntaseura ry recreational association. Half of the net total from the collection will be donated abroad, principally to India. Taking part in the campaign were Wärtsilä’s Vaasa and Turku factories, Imatra Steel’s units and the Helsinki head office.
This was the first time the Children’s Hour campaign has been organized in Wärtsilä. Personnel interest was extremely high with a 55 % participation rate. As the name of the campaign suggests each participant donated one hour’s worth of his or her work. Wärtsilä also donated the same sum of money as collected by its employees. The same campaign is also being organized elsewhere in the Wärtsilä Group, namely Wärtsilä Switzerland Ltd, Wärtsilä North America Inc. and Wärtsilä India Ltd, and the aim is to introduce the campaign to other Wärtsilä units around the world in the future.
Wärtsilä is the leading global ship power supplier and a major provider of decentralized power generation systems and of supporting services. In addition Wärtsilä operates a Nordic engineering steel company Imatra Steel and manages a substantial holding to support the core business. Wärtsilä’s net sales in 2000 were EUR 2.7 billion and the number of employees was 10,500.
The Finnish Children and Youth Foundation is a new foundation concentrating on preventive youth work. It collects funds mainly from the business community. It is part of the International Youth Foundation (IYF) network. Its policy is to donate half of all the funds it collects in Finland and half abroad.
Heikki Järvenpää
Managing Director
Slns
Direct tel: +358 (0)9 618 21 212
Direct fax:
e-mail:Heikki.Jarvenpaa@wartsila.com
Internet: www.wartsila.com
