The Star Online: Lifestyle: Parenting
The Star Online: Lifestyle: Parenting |
| Posted: Nestle Malaysia is giving out loads of prizes that foster family togetherness through its Family Day Bonanza contest. GATHERING with family and friends is an important part of healthy living. While this can be a challenge due to the hustle and bustle of life, it is nevertheless important to master the art of juggling our schedules to ensure we have family time. Understanding this, Nestle Malaysia has announced its Family Day campaign which is aimed at encouraging families to bond with each other. "As the old adage goes, 'A family that plays together, stays together'; it is important to make time and strengthen ties between parents and children. Through Nestle's Family Day, we hope to enhance the quality of family life with healthy and fun activities," said Nestle Malaysia/Singapore region head Alois Hofbauer during the launch of the Family Day campaign in Kuala Lumpur recently. The campaign introduces Nestle Malaysia Family Day Bonanza contest where consumers stand a chance to win prizes worth up to RM2,600,000.  'Family ties are important,' says Nestle Malaysia/Singapore region head Alois Hofbauer. He said Nestle Malaysia is committed to fostering family togetherness through its latest campaign. Nestle is giving out loads of food, entertainment and holiday vouchers to its customers to enable them to bond and strengthen ties with their family. "Family ties are important and this is in line with the objective of the campaign which is to enhance and rejoice in family togetherness among Malaysians," said Hofbauer. Consumers aren't the only ones who will benefit from the family-themed prizes. For every submission of a valid entry form, Nestle Malaysia will donate RM1, with the proceeds going to selected orphanages. Nestle hopes to raise RM1mil. "Some children don't live in intact families due to divorce, separation or death. This can result in children growing up in non-traditional family set up where a single parent has to raise them. There are also those who grow up in orphanages and foster care homes when their parents are unable to look after them. "Children need love and care and it is important to help them through social support and funding. Through our contest bonanza, we aim to raise funds to help the needy," he explained. To make the contribution even more meaningful, Nestle Malaysia will organise dinners at the orphanages. Its staff will join in to interact with the children. "We want to add value to our contribution. It's not merely presenting a cheque but more to enable our staff to give back to the community by helping these children," Hofbauer added. There are two tiers to the contest – one that offers consumers 600 daily prizes of attractive vouchers worth RM1,000, and the grand finale where consumers go through an elimination challenge to win cash. For the latter, 20 first prize winners will walk away with up to RM100,000 each, five second prize winners will walk away with RM6,000 each and five third prize winners will win RM3,000 each. Vouchers up for grabs include vouchers for dining, and holiday packages, as well as for gadgets such as TVs, mini tablets, cameras and handphones. The contest runs till Sept 30. >For more details on the Family Day Bonanza contest, call 1-800-88-3433 (weekdays, 10am-5pm) or go to nestle.com.my/family. Giving back to the community COMMUNITY initiatives have always been part of Nestle Malaysia's corporate social commitment. In 2010, the company launched a Healthy Kids Programme to improve nutrition knowledge and promote an active lifestyle among primary school children. The programme, which commenced two years ago, has so far reached 200 students in six schools in the Klang Valley. Healthy Kids Programme has a two-prong approach – the awareness component (workshops and a website: healthykids.org.my) to reach out to the masses, and a research component (a longitudinal research study) to develop, implement and evaluate the effectiveness of nutritional educational modules.  Nestle's Paddy Club is an initiative where Nestle works with farmers through a ricegrowing sustainability programme to provide additional income to paddy farmers. "The programme is focused on basic principles on healthy eating, active living, basic hygiene and disease prevention. At the end of the three-year programme, education modules will be presented to the Ministry of Education so that they can be utilised by schools throughout the country," said Hofbauer. There was also the three-year Project RiLeaf – which started in 2010 – a reforestation initiative at the Kinabatangan River in Sandakan, Sabah to help sustain and create a landscape where nature, people and agriculture (oil palm) can harmoniously co-exist in their need for water. The initiative will see the reforestation of 2,400 hectres of land along the Lower Kinabatangan River and aims to create a natural riverine buffer that will minimise the impact of soil sedimentation and chemical run-offs, giving the river a chance to repair itself over a course of time. In addition, the project also hopes to educate smallholder farmers to implement sustainable agricultural practices in their daily farming activities by using natural fertilisers and pesticides and by reducing chemical usage. Nestle Malaysia chalked a milestone after planting 100,000 trees along the Lower Kinabatangan River last year. In Feb 2012, the company went on to launch Paddy Club to assist farmers in Kedah through a rice-growing sustainability programme that uses environmentally friendly approaches to manufacture infant cereals. The programme also aims to provide additional income to paddy farmers while bringing about environmental benefits through more efficient water usage and reduction of greenhouse gas emission by the commercialisation of the Semi-Aerobic Rice Intensifaction (SARI) method. The semi-aerobic water controlled initiative allows farmers to work with minimised exposure to hazardous chemicals. It also helps conserve water, reduce methane and their environmental footprint. It provides farmers with better potential to earn extra income by having them deal directly with Nestle and cutting out the middle man, while Nestle has access to reliable and controllable source of rice for infant cereals manufacturing. "About 400 farmers are engaged in the programme. They are taught an organic way with environmentally-friendly methods to increase high quality yields which are used in many of our products. It's a win-win situation for everyone – we invest in farmers and they provide us with quality products. This is part of Nestle's 'Creating Shared Value' – we can create long-term stake holder value and benefit society." |
| Posted: Late dad makes up for school-supply snafu with tech gift ideas. Dear child of mine who started school this week, Mistakes were made. I'm sorry about the school supplies. There. I said it. I thought the school supply list (which was very, very long, I might add) was mostly a set of friendly suggestions. I mean, two boxes of pencils? Who needs that many pencils? Do you kids still even use pencils that aren't digital? You do? Every day? OK. Now Daddy knows. I think six is old enough for you to understand that life is hard and sometimes Daddy doesn't have all his ducks in a row. Sometimes the ducks are under the couch or behind the TV or up on a tall shelf where your little sister can't grab the duck and drown it in the toilet. Why are you crying? Please stop crying. There are no real ducks in our house. Now you want a duck? OK, listen, we'll discuss that later. Right now, Daddy has to run to the store and get these school supplies (eight glue sticks? Really?), but here's what we're going to do. Daddy has learned over time that the right kind of technology can sometimes improve a bad situation. To make up for this school supply oversight (which, really, is the school district's fault for being underfunded), Daddy is going to put together a back-to-school tech gift guide list for other parents who may also be running a little behind. Yes, I know school has already started. That's one of the wayward, out-of-line ducks that Daddy was talking about. No, it's not a real duck. No, your sister didn't drown it. Thank you for not crying. For younger students: When I was your age, we only had sticks, rocks and Play-Doh. Alright, that's not entirely true. We had Atari and very underpowered personal computers, but it seems like children now have an enormous range of digital products that also have a strong educational component. In addition to all the mainstream tablets, computers and smartphone apps you already have access to, there are a lot of kid-friendly tech products geared to your age. Two tablets, for instance, the Nabi Jr (www.nabitablet.com, pic above) and LeapPad Ultra from LeapFrog (www.leapfrog.com), are cheaper than most tablets, have built-in web-safety features and are made with tough, rubber cases to keep them from getting broken. Remember that big crack on the screen of Daddy's iPad? Daddy sure does. The Nabi Jr features Nickelodeon characters such as Dora The Explorer and Team Umizoomi in a variety of learning exercises. The LeapPad has a huge library of games and learning videos featuring Sesame Street or Disney characters among others, as well as flash cards and ebooks. It's not as full-featured as those tablets, but the Ubooly (www.ubooly.com) is much less expensive and a lot cuter. It's a brightly coloured stuffed "Smart Toy" into which you can insert an iPhone or iPad. The device screen becomes the face of the Ubooly, who comes to life to talk, interact and teach. It began as a Kickstarter project bringing together techies and educators and is continually updated with teacher-created games and activities. And because I know it's a challenge for little hands to keep digital screens tidy, there's Toddy Gear Screensters (www.toddygear.com), cute cartoon figures available in 10 different styles. They're made of microfibre, perfect for clearing off smudges and dust from the screens of tablets and phones.  The LeapPad Ultra from LeapFrog. For older kids and college-bound students: Students who've outgrown kid tablets but are still too young to handle an expensive, full-featured ultrabook or fully loaded iPad have some inexpensive options, like the recently updated Google Nexus 7 tablet, a powerful 7-inch device with long battery life and a full-HD screen. For students who may have already opted for the comparable iPad Mini, the Magnus Mini (www.tenonedesign.com) is one of the cleverest accessories I've seen for it, a practically invisible stand using magnets to keep the small tablet firmly in place. It's rubberised to avoid scratching or scuffing up the tablet. If you were older, these are some of the things I'd buy for you (maybe). If you were heading to college, having somehow academically survived your father's ongoing school supply blunders, I might send you to the dorms with a few goodies including the Targus Bluetooth Wireless Keyboard for Tablets (www.targus.com). There are lots of wireless keyboards for tablets, but this one is versatile enough to work with not only Android and iOS tablets, but also with Windows tablets and even Mac computers. You may still need paper for school, but for college I would hope you'd have some kind of digital backup for class notes. The Evernote Smart Notebook by Moleskine (www.moleskine.com) includes three months of Evernote's Premium service for getting your digital life in order. Taking photos of handwritten notes and drawings syncs them to the online service with Evernote's free apps. Stickers included with the notebook made it easy to tag and categorise everything. College students are always on the go; who has time to charge anything during the day? The PowerBinder by Powerstick.com (www.powerstick.com) is pricey, but it's a full-blown mobile office. It can hold a tablet, will charge various devices via USB, can double as a stand and, best of all, is solar-powered. It's not the most attractive carry-along, but when you to go college, you are not there to impress people, you are there to learn, got it young lady? Lest you think Daddy is completely no fun at all, he will suggest Sphero 2.0 (gosphero.com), a new version of a robotic toy ball he reviewed last year. The new model is faster, has brighter lights and now includes a rubberised off-road cover and two ramps for stunts. It can be used with "MicroLab", an app for learning basic programming. It seems like it could be a great dorm toy. And now your father is all out of ideas. This won't happen again next year, I promise. — Austin American-Statesman, Texas/McClatchy-Tribune Information Services |
| You are subscribed to email updates from Family To stop receiving these emails, you may unsubscribe now. | Email delivery powered by Google |
| Google Inc., 20 West Kinzie, Chicago IL USA 60610 | |
0 ulasan:
Catat Ulasan