CANGO CSR project held 2nd training in Lanzhou

From October 27 to 29, 2010 the second CSR training was held in Lanzhou, Gansu province as part of the CANGO project Promoting CSR in western China . The project has been funded by the German Heinrich Boell Foundation and aims at raising awareness for CSR issues in the western provinces and regions in China, bringing together various stakeholders for exchange. Thus the training included representatives of the local government, enterprises and NGOs to give them a deeper insight into Corporate Social Responsibility issues. In order to provide the basis for CSR related discussions the first training had provided knowledge on labor law and labor contract law. The second training continued and broadened the topics thus including occupational health and safety as well as sexual harassment at the workplace. Beyond that CSR guidelines and regulations in China were introduced, a first insight into the new CSR standard ISO 26000 was provided and various points of company NGO cooperation were touched upon, for example company donation and tax policies and cooperation strategies for NGOs.

65 participants from about 35 companies, government agencies and NGOs took part in the training, actively discussing cases, making suggestions and coming up with solutions.

The two trainers of the first session last May, Dr. Liang Xiaohui of China National Textile and Apparel Council and Dr. Jia Ying of CSR & Company conducted lively participatory two and a half days of training, providing a lot of new knowledge to the participants. In Lanzhou CANGO was supported by the Gansu Association for NGO International Economic & Technical Cooperation which selected the venue and invited the participants. Especially the NGOs will be included in follow up work and requested to provide their organisations and project data for the exchange platform of the CANGO CSR webpage as an information basis for establishing company NGO cooperation projects.