Numico signs agreement with SOS Children’s Villages

Schiphol, 26 October 2006 - Royal Numico N.V. announces the signing of a five-year agreement with the international non-governmental organisation SOS Children’s Villages for a worldwide partnership, to provide support to orphans and vulnerable children around the world.

The co-operation between Numico and SOS Children’s Villages originates from a charitable campaign initiated at Numico in 2004, following the tragedy of the Indian Ocean tsunami. This programme raised significant funds, but Numico felt that the company should do more than contribute to temporary disaster relief. After looking for ways to provide community support over the longer term, and following a careful selection process, the company chose SOS Children’s Villages as its partner in a new programme to help offer a better future for orphans around the world.

Jan Bennink, CEO of Numico comments: ‘This agreement is a milestone for our long-term corporate citizenship plan for orphaned children, and I am proud that we have the opportunity to partner with SOS Children’s Villages, which has earned universal respect for its work over many years and in so many countries to take care of young and vulnerable people. Numico is active in 37 of the countries where SOS Children’s Villages is currently running projects. We have now launched an internal programme called “Supporting Lives” to extend the benefits of our new partnership across the company, with a goal to provide targeted, effective help to those who need it most’.

Albert Jaap van Santbrink, general manager of SOS Children’s Villages in the Netherlands: ‘This is our first global partnership with a major Dutch-based company. The partnership reflects Numico’s trust in our organisation and our way of working. This is an enormous step forward in creating an environment with trustworthy partners that value our aim to give children who have lost their parents or who are no longer able to live with their parents, a permanent home and a stable environment’.

The first series of projects under this partnership are now underway in Indonesia, where housing units and a kindergarten have been built in Medan as part of a new SOS Children’s Village. A medical clinic will soon open in Aceh, and Numico will fund the running costs as well as the construction of these facilities. In Portugal and Turkey, Numico units have already announced joint campaigns with local SOS Children’s Villages organisations, and many other countries are expected to follow their example.

SOS Children’s Villages is a private and non-governmental social development organisation for children, that has been active in providing worldwide care for orphaned and abandoned children for almost 60 years, regardless of their religion, race or ethnic heritance. SOS Children’s Villages has her own unique way of child care; the children grow up in a family together with brothers and sisters, under the loving care of an SOS mother. The organisation consists of 450 Children’s Villages in 132 countries and is responsible for the daily care of 60.000 orphans. Other SOS facilities such as schools, medical centres and social centres contribute to the quality of life of the local communities in the neighbourhood of the SOS Children’s Villages (see also: www.soskinderdorpen.nl).

Royal Numico is a high-growth, high-margin specialised nutrition company with leading positions in Baby Food and Clinical Nutrition and brings products to the market under the brand names Nutricia, Milupa, Cow & Gate, Mellin and Dumex, among others. The company serves customers in over 100 countries and employs approx. 13,000 people (see also: www.numico.com).

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