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Awarded “Equal Opportunities”

Redaktion PSI Journal

Published on 22.07.2021

Long-established company Faber-Castell has won the German Award for Sustainability Projects 2021 in the “Equal Opportunities” category for its charity colour pencil set Colour Grip Children of the world. This year, the Award was handed out for the first time by news broadcaster ntv, DUP UNTERNEHMER and the German Institute for Service Quality (DISQ).

The Children of the world colour pencil set is aimed at children in the important stage of adolescence and self-discovery. In order to reinforce their self-concept, it is important the children are able to depict themselves and their individual skin colour in a true-to-life way when drawing. However, the colour spectrum of many colour pencil sets is limited, meaning that it has hitherto been impossible to impeccably portray the skin’s different pigments.

Faber-Castell has addressed this topic and, with Children of the world, developed a set that contains an additional three double pencils featuring six skin tones. Along the way, the company benefited from the expertise of its proprietary cosmetics division: The leads are based on real make-up shades and possess a correspondingly soft texture. The colours are therefore very easy to blend, meaning that the great diversity of richly nuanced skin tones can be illustrated. With the set, Faber-Castell supports parents and teachers in their pedagogical work of teaching identity and self-respect in a playful way, promoting children’s personality development and encouraging their creativity at the same time too. An additional contribution towards climate protection: The colour pencils are produced climate-neutrally at the Faber-Castell works, are made of wood from sustainable sources and are provided with environmentally friendly water-based lacquer.

With every one of these sets sold, Faber-Castell supports the Red Pencil Humanitarian Mission. The non-profit organisation helps children in crisis areas across the world to come to terms with traumatic experiences with the aid of drawing therapy. Faber-Castell has been able to fund the initiative’s work to the tune of almost 40,000 Euro since the product was introduced in spring 2020.

As a traditional brand and a globally active family-run company with a long-standing value culture, Faber-Castell finds that equality and cultural diversity come naturally. These values are also lived out in the Faber-Castell community: The Faber-Castell Social Charter has applied for all international corporate locations since March 2000. It contains a clear prohibition on discrimination of any kind, along with a requirement for equal treatment, regardless of skin colour, gender, religion, race, nationality. An independent committee monitors the agreement’s implementation at regular intervals. www.faber-castell.de

Photo: Stefan Leitz (CEO Faber-Castell AG) and Verena Hafner (Head of Marketing Playing & Learning) are delighted to receive the German Award for Sustainability Projects.