HONDA The Power of Dreams

In June 2020, Honda once again hosted the Honda C-card Charity Award Ceremony with the Japanese Red Cross Society and the Japan Committee for UNICEF.

Honda donates a fixed percentage of the total annual Honda C-card spend to the Red Cross and UNICEF, with zero burden on its customers.

Fiscal 2021 marked the 25th year that Honda has donated money to the charities, with cumulative donations to the two organizations now totaling approximately 978 million yen.

The Children’s Idea Contest seeks to enable children to experience the importance and joy of creation, and provide support for them to grow as members of society. Through the act of drawing their dreams and taking on new challenges, the contest is an opportunity for children to give shape to their ideas. The contest was held for the 17th time in 2019, and a cumulative total of 55,623 works have been submitted over the past 17 years. In addition, since 2012, Thai children who had taken part in a similar contest in Thailand were invited to an international exchange event held at the Twin Ring Motegi racetrack in Tochigi Prefecture. Together with Japanese children, they talked about their future dreams and their country’s cultures, introduced each other’s work, and engaged in a variety of other exchanges.

The Children’s Idea Contest is held in Thailand, Vietnam, and Japan. In Japan, the 2019 contest received 8,155 applications. A cumulative total of more than 4,264,486 applications have now been submitted across all three countries. This contest gives us access to the promising next generation who will become future customers in major Asian markets, and contributes to the image improvement of the Honda brand.

Honda carries out its Honda Beach Cleanup Project from a desire to ensure that the next generation will be able to experience the joy of walking barefoot on sandy beaches.

During the cleanup activities, large pieces of garbage are picked up by hand, with smaller items then efficiently recovered by Honda’s proprietary towed Beach Cleaner*. Environmental education classes are also held for children, stressing the importance of environmental conservation.

Cleanup activities were held 31 times in FY2020, with 2,653 associates from 402 Group companies taking part together with people from the local communities. In FY2020, about 43 tons of litter was collected through this activity—the largest amount in the last 10 years. The total volume collected since 2006, when we started these activities, was about 490 tons. This activity contributes to maintaining beach environments nationwide.

* Honda’s exclusive system for the efficient collection of garbage uses an all-terrain vehicle (ATV), ideal for driving on sand, towing a cleaner unit.

Honda wishes to ensure the safety of everyone who participates in the mobility society. The company believes that road safety requires lifelong learning, and works together with society to promote road safety education for all generations, from infants to senior citizens, in a manner befitting their age and experience.

Ayatorii Hiyoko is an educational program developed for preschool children, who are taking their first steps in the mobility society, and teaches them the fundamentals of road safety. Using the program materials, local authorities, road traffic groups, and Honda car dealership associates can become instructors and provide group learning to children in nurseries and kindergartens, or when they visit Honda dealerships. In fiscal 2020, a total of 3,000 classes were held across Japan, giving large numbers of children the opportunity to learn about road safety.

Ayatorii Hiyoko makes use of illustrations, mascot characters, and large-scale, A1-size worksheets to show a variety of road traffic scenarios in a way that is easy to understand. Instructors engage the children through two-way interactions, quizzing them with questions such as “If you want to walk safely, where on the road should you walk?” and “What do the different traffic light colors mean?,” and using worksheets. Through the program, they communicate to children the importance of the three fundamentals of road safety—Stop, Look, and Wait—in an enjoyable manner.