“Seeing the Expo from 1-Meter High” Launching Ceremony in China
May 16th is Helping Disabled People Day in China, and it marked the launch of Redchair’s “Seeing the Expo from 1-meter high” Expo program in Jing’an Park.
Redchair’s “Seeing the Expo from 1-meter high” program was launched by the Wheelchair Foundation in 2009, and since then a number of enterprises have participated in the love relay. During the World Expo, Tyco Electronics led the way towards realizing the disabled’s dreams of visiting the Expo by donating 450 Redchairs as well as encouraging employees to volunteer to accompany the disabled on visits to the Expo.
Guests invited to the ceremony included the Deputy Director of the Expo Volunteers Department and Party Secretary of the Communist Youth League Shanghai, Ms. Pan Min; the Deputy Secretary-general of Shanghai Volunteers Association, Mr. Chen Zhenmin; the Vice President of Tyco Electronics, Mr. Gordon Hwang; Executive Chairman of the Wheelchair Foundation, Mr. Steve Beinke; the President of Amcham Shanghai, Ms. Brenda Foster; representatives from Touch Media, Jing’an District; disabled persons and about 100 Tyco Electronics employee volunteers. The ceremony was hosted by Redchair program spokesman, Jin Jing, and Shanghai’s famous TV host, Shi Yan.
When the red silk covering the baton gradually opened, Ms. Pan Min, granted the first baton to a representative of Tyco Electronics. Accompanied by the volunteers, fifty elderly and disabled people sitting on wheelchairs set out to the Expo Park by bus or the subway’s Line 7.
With support from subway volunteers and Expo volunteers, 100 Tyco Electronics volunteers accompanied the elderly and disabled for about 10 hours. Together, using public transportation and wheelchair accessible facilities to visit Expo pavilions. The program participants and volunteers had a great time socializing, eating lunch, and seeing the fascinating sites and pavilions at the Expo.
When visiting the Life and Sunshine Pavilion, one of our special guests, Ji Miwa agreed to an interview by CCTV, ”I’m happy to visit this pavilion, a high-technology lifestyle can improve our disabled people’s quality of life, and with this we can better integrate into the society.”
Both the participants and volunteers enjoyed themselves, and the Wheelchair Foundation looks forward to more community groups joining the Redchair Program to allow more disabled people to enjoy the thrill of “seeing the Expo from 1-meter high