DS Smith Donates € 50,000 to Refugee Children

The Christmas season is traditionally a time of presents. For the third time in a row, DS Smith has decided on the occasion of Christmas to give children in need the chance of a future. Therefore, the company abstains again from customer gifts and instead donates € 50,000 to the UNICEF campaign “Donations. Instead of gifts” Thus the customers of DS Smith contribute to improve the lives of children in need by sparing a small present.

“Our customers gave rise to our decision to do without customer gifts for the third time in a row and make a donation to UNICEF via the DS Smith Charitable Foundation instead”, emphasises Dr. Markus Kleiner, Director Change Projects, Strategy & Marketing, at DS Smith for the Germany & Switzerland region. “In many companies, employees are no longer allowed to receive small gifts anyway. The positive feedback from our customers to the previous donations has encouraged us to support children in need again this year.” 

“As a company that produces innovative displays and clever packaging solutions using corrugated board as the basic material, sustainability and responsible action are among our corporate values”, stresses Per V. Frederiksen, Managing Director at DS Smith. “Children are our future. If we want a good future, we must begin here and show commitment.”

Anja Röhrle, Marketing Manager at DS Smith, adds: “Every day, we see new pictures of frightened and totally distraught children in the news. Children who have seen and experienced incredible suffering and misery in their young lives. We want to make a contribution to help these children and give them prospects. The UNICEF campaign “Donations. Instead of Gifts” focuses on multiple regions: UNICEF helps in the field, along the refugee routes and in the countries where the children arrive to stay permanently or temporarily. We consider this overall concept very important.”

“Never before have so many children been fleeing globally”, affirms Gudrun Petzoldt-Remmert from the UNICEF Fulda working group. “Wars and catastrophes, hunger, water scarcity and poverty force millions of families to leave their homes and flee into an uncertain future, far away from their homelands - often on life-risking routes.” Hermann Eichel, also from the UNICEF Fulda working group, adds: “UNICEF does everything it can to ensure that children get help even under the most difficult conditions and experience a bit of normality in everyday life. A donation of € 50,000, for instance, allows 430 children in Syria to participate in a self-learning programme for one year. Teaching in times of war is more than knowledge transfer - school is hope for a better future.”

For further information on the topic of DS Smith’s corporate social responsibility, please go to www.dssmith-packaging.de. More detailed information on the UNICEF campaign “Donations. Instead of Gifts” can be found under www.unicef.de/spendenstattschenken.