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22 Changing health marketsLiving together, learning from each other.People and their health are at theforefront of thinking and actingin the HARTMANN GROUP.We apply this principle not onlyin our innovations but also inproduction as well as in dealingwith employees and suppliersaround the world.As an international company, we also operate manufacturing plants incountries where people and their health are not always valued. We thereforework with our suppliers and are involved – closely aligned to our corebusiness – in a number of education and training projects and humanitarianendeavors.Training and earning instead of child laborThe project Learn and Earn in Sialkot, Pakistan, is an example of this commitment.The HARTMANN GROUP has its disposable surgical products of thePeha-instrument brand manufactured here (see page 16). Child labor is verycommon in Pakistan – a situation we do not want to accept. HARTMANNtherefore has set itself the goal of banning child labor in the entire productionprocess. Together with a local development aid organization, we havelaunched the following support project in Sialkot: children under the age of15 working at subcontractors of our suppliers are withdrawn from work,receive a scholarship, free health care, and can attend private schools. Schoolattendance, books, and uniforms are financed by the project. In addition, thestudents receive material and financial support compensating for lost wages.To make sure that not only the children directly affected are protected, theirsiblings can also participate in the Learn and Earn project. This helps preventsending another child in the family to work.Residential home and training center for young women in IndiaIn the Indian city of Coimbatore, the HARTMANN subsidiary Karl Otto Braun(KOB) has been helping young women from the countryside to participate ineducation and training for 11 years, enhancing, among other things, theirsocial position. The women receive free room and board as well as healthcare on the company’s premises. After three years of vocational training, theyusually return to their families. Some of them get married at the end of theirtraining. A portion of their wages is paid into a government controled fund,accrues interest, and is given to them at the end of their training. After theexpansion of the plant in 2009, about 210 young female workers are nowliving in the company‘s residential quarters.