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Citizenship
Citizenship Fact Sheet
GE's Citizenship Web Site

Corporate Integrity

GE has built and maintained our strong culture of integrity and compliance by remaining dedicated to our governance policies. Our ombudsperson process and integrity statement, The Spirit & The Letter, are two of the ways we keep open channels of communication and make clear our policies and expectations of employees.


Citizenship in Hungary


Volunteers

GE Volunteers, a global organization of GE employees and retirees, is committed to improving our communities, our company and our lives through volunteerism, leadership and camaraderie. GE contributes to the development of the local communities where it has operations. Our employees volunteer over 1 million hours of community service every year. The Hungarian organization was set up in 1996 and since then it has helped with over 1,000 projects. In 2009, 5,192 volunteers devoted 19,794 hours and 62,000 USD to more than 100 projects in Hungary.

Innovative educational programs

• The GE Foundation Scholar-Leader Scholarship Program has been managed by the Institute of International Education since 2003. The program has become a regional best practice, as it was launched in Poland, the Czech Republic and Romania, enabling students from the four countries (a total of 398 by 2011) to establish a regional network of young intellectuals during the annual summer seminars held in Budapest.

• The GE Foundation Opening Doors (Nyíló világ) secondary school talent development program has been run by GE and its partners since 2002. GE leaders provide mentorship for participating students within the framework of GE’s Volunteers organization. In 2004, the program was introduced in two other cities in Eastern-Hungary, where GE has factories, Kisvárda and Hajdúböszörmény. In 2005 the program was extended to all secondary schools in Ózd and the neighboring Putnok, and then to the technical schools of the participating cities in 2008, making it available to 474 students and 59 teachers of the four cities to date. With the support of the Municipality of Borsod-Abauj-Zemplen County, in 2006 the program was adopted in three more cities (Kazincbarcika, Sátoraljaújhely, Tiszaújváros) in the region involving 72 students and 20 teachers of four new partner schools.

• The GE Foundation Life Skills for Employability program, a three-year pilot of holistic education approach, was launched in 2006 in two towns of Hungary (Nagykanizsa, Zalaegerszeg) and Poland involving nearly 500 teachers and 10,000 students in the global Life Skills for Employability program organized by International Youth Foundation. The program had been designed to supplement theoretical knowledge obtained in school education with skills enabling students to lead a successful life, to implement their goals both on individual and community level, to become valuable citizens of the region.

• The Aschner technical university research and PhD scholarship program has helped students with the assistance of GE Lighting since 2000.

• In 2005 GE Healthcare announced a new graduate and PhD scholarship program "Oveges Jozsef" for talented engineering students, who are interested in working on healthcare projects.

Contribution to national goals

• GE assumed a leading role in the annual campaign “Together for health and against breast cancer!” launched first in the fall 2002. With the support of GE Healthcare, the Chain Bridge, lit in pink, nicknamed the Bridge of Health, became the symbol of the national campaign aiming to call attention to the fact that breast cancer is treatable, the importance of early diagnosis and healthy lifestyle. www.egeszseghid.hu.
In 2009 GE offered its best practice of an all-employee health awareness campaign for the partners of the Alliance to help mobilize their associates. The joint campaign under the patronage of the First Lady of Hungary delivered the key messages regarding healthy life style and the importance of breath cancer screening to 100,000+ employees of 17 partner companies in 2010. The PartnerChain continues to grow and in aims to reach 500,000 Hungarian employees of 100 companies in the coming years.

• New decorative illumination of the historic Chain Bridge (1999)
That means we approach Citizenship with the same discipline, strategy and accountabilities that drive any part of our business. As we expand in developed and emerging markets, we will be continually challenged to invest in a sustainable way that leverages our financial, technical and intellectual resources to the benefit of our investors, customers, employees and communities.
Our commitment is expressed in a wide range of initiatives, from customer and supplier relationships to public policy and shareowner objectives. Explore our most recent Citizenship report to learn the many ways that GE seeks to make life better.

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