For a leading automaker like Toyota Vietnam, business is not merely business. The company, with a history of nearly 30 years in the domestic market and with numerous auto makes being popular among Vietnamese consumers, has chosen to accompany the community to build a shared road to prosperity.
For decades, the Toyota Vietnam Foundation has launched numerous community initiatives, with a special focus on education to nurture talent and enhance the schooling environment for local students, especially in poverty-stricken areas. As a successful automaker, Toyota Vietnam has also leveraged resources to improve traffic safety for the community.
Scholarships for students
In late November 2023, Toyota Vietnam Foundation organized a ceremony for its annual Toyota Technical Scholarship program, awarding 115 scholarships worth VND690 million to outstanding students majoring in engineering, technology and environment from 18 universities nationwide. This scholarship program was first launched in 1997, soon after the company’s establishment, with an aim to develop human resources for Vietnam’s major industries. Ever since, the foundation has awarded more than 2,800 scholarships to students, and many of them have joined the company and its agents after graduation.
Apart from the scholarships, the automaker’s foundation on this occasion also donated three sets of Vios engines, two sets of Avanza Premio engines, and a Fortuner chassis to six universities to help the schools in their teaching. To date, it has donated nearly 200 sets of equipment to schools, comprising automobiles, engines and gearboxes among others.
Toyota Vietnam’s support to education is not limited to scholarships. The company via its foundation has since 2000 collaborated with universities and vocational colleges to roll out the Toyota Technical Education Program (T-TEP) to develop manpower for Vietnam’s auto industry. To date, the program has been implemented at nine T-TEP centers at schools in various localities including Hanoi, HCMC, Hai Duong, Vinh Phuc and Vinh Long, training over 3,000 students for the industry. In this program, the Toyota Vietnam Foundation has spent some US$1 million supporting the schools in training.
Also in late November 2023, the foundation offered 85 scholarships worth VND510 million to young music talent at the Vietnam National Academy of Music, Hue Academy of Music, HCMC Conservatory of Music, and two other arts colleges. The foundation also donated traditional musical instruments to these schools.
Over the past 15 years, the Toyota Vietnam Foundation has offered over 1,200 scholarships to outstanding students at conservatories, and assisted these students to train and perform at major concerts organized by Toyota. It is noted that all proceeds from Toyota concerts are used to support music students.
Traffic safety for the community
Traffic safety for the community is an area of high priority for Toyota Vietnam. The company has implemented its traffic safety program since 2005, providing knowledge and skills on traffic for teachers and students across the country.
Contents on traffic safety are introduced via fun-filled practical traffic situations and integrated into formal curricula for students at primary schools, while teachers are equipped with skills on traffic safety education via specially-designed workshops.
Since 2005, the program has reached out to more than five million primary students from schools in 61 cities and provinces nationwide, and has been highly appreciated by the Ministry of Education and Training and the National Committee for Traffic Safety.
The Toyota Vietnam Foundation has also collaborated with the National Committee for Traffic Safety to organize film festivals on traffic safety to raise public awareness on this topic and encourage the people to observe traffic regulations.
The automaker has also collaborated with other agencies and broadcasting outlets to run several programs on traffic safety, including the Safe Driving Training program, the Traffic Safety Initiatives program, and the Exchange of Traffic Safety Messages program.
Other CSR activities
Alongside contributions to human resource development, Toyota Vietnam has regularly conducted other CSR activities benefiting the community.
On April 12 this year, the foundation donated a clean water system to a school in Dien Bien Province, comprising a drilled well, a filtering system and water tanks, supplying safe water for 600 students and teachers as well as many households in the neighborhood.
Earlier this year, the automaker’s foundation also donated similar clean water works to a school in Lam Dong Province in the Central Highlands and another school in the Mekong Delta province of Tra Vinh. Since 2019, the Toyota Vietnam Foundation has handed over nine clean water facilities to primary schools in the country, supplying clean water for 3,680 students and teachers at the schools as well as families nearby.
Weeks ago, in early June this year, the Toyota Vietnam Foundation handed over a newly-built kindergarten named Muong Bu in Son La Province’s Muong La District. This kindergarten includes two classrooms and toilets, a staff room and a kitchen. The foundation is slated to hand over a new school site with two classrooms and toilets to a primary school in Tuyen Quang Province’s Lam Binh District in September this year, taking the total number of school sites donated by the foundation since 2019 to nine, mostly in northern upland localities.
“The Toyota Vietnam Foundation hopes that such donations will help improve schooling conditions for little students and help teachers improve teaching quality, contributing to the development of the future generation,” said a representative of the foundation.
In addition, the foundation has over the years helped plant thousands of trees at 86 schools in 39 cities and provinces nationwide, reused auto tires to create several playgrounds for students, planted trees and installed dustbins at parks, and donated 26,000 trees for planting in six provinces in response to the Government’s program to plant one billion trees.
With relentless efforts to make positive contributions to the community, Toyota Vietnam has helped improve the quality of life, and assert its commitment to accompany the community on the shared road to prosperity.
