On the 9th of September 2022, 35 employees of Shimadzu Europe and Shimadzu Germany changed their normal workday against a project of corporate social responsibility.
Our Contribution to the community.
Our Social Day took place in the forest kindergarten “Zwergenland” in Duisburg-Großenbaum. It is special that this kindergarten cares for their children outside in the forest under the open sky or in tents the whole day. It only opened on 1st August. The natural environment deserves to be the children’s daily playground instead of game consoles, plastic toys and co. “Zwergenland” is the first kindergarten of the Caritas Duisburg and also the first that cares for their children this way. The 40 kids separated into two groups discover the grounds daily anew with much excitement. On site, Melanie Jeromin was our cooperation partner. As the manager of the forest kindergarten, she stood aside with advice and support. Our colleagues always feel good about doing something good for others, crafting, creating, and doing things for a good purpose. E. g. Dr. Andreas Domröse, Product Specialist HPLC at Shimadzu Germany, emphasises that “it is especially important to us to be socially involved within the community where we have our location". For Mascha Widler, Human Recruiter at Shimadzu Europe “the Social Day is about helping out and just making a contribution". In addition, Florian Geistmann, the Managing Director of Shimadzu Germany, highlights the importance of standing together as one team and achieving something for fellow human beings, or just for the children.
What we have built for the children.
First, we have built two forest sofas with seating circles made of tree elements. They can be used for the morning circle with the children or parents' evenings or in general as a natural place for singing, telling stories, and creating other daily activities in the group. With nails and sledgehammers, we put the tree elements together to form a seating circle with a backrest, which was then filled with branches lying around. As some of the branches also had leaves on them, this gave the seating circle a comfortable atmosphere.
Second, a natural mud and digging corner was created where the children can dig in the mud with scoops and shovels. To do this, the Shimadzu team used shovels and spades to loosen the ground and remove the weeds and stones.
Additionally, we fixed the tents anew so that they are strong for every weather. Furthermore, we built high flower beds. The children enthusiastically helped us and filled the high beds with soil. At least, we built a deadwood hedge to border the individual play areas on the grounds for the children by wildly stacking branches on top of each other.
Only natural resources from the forest were used for the project as a paddle tree and branches lying around. The paddle was cut into individual elements with a chainsaw, just as we needed it. After all, the children conducted a quality control and accepted their new playground with great joy. But not only the children benefit from the forest sofas and co, also the senior citizens of the day care and the young people from the rehabilitation facility on site. Now after Shimadzu’s engagement, the forest Duisburg-Großenbaum is a place for intergenerational coexistence.
The fun, sweat and mud were worth it, as Saskia Schulte, the organiser of the Social Day, says, because "you can't build a mud and digging corner without getting dirty". After all, there is nothing better than seeing the happy children with smiles on their faces