The Aviva Great Wall of Education, a book donation drive for the underprivileged children, was launched today at Express Avenue Mall, Royapettah by Padmashree Dr Kamal Haasan, award winning actor.
- A Book donation drive for underprivileged children supported by the Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan, Save the Children and Vidyarambam.
The Aviva Great Wall of Education, a book donation drive for the underprivileged children, was launched today at Express Avenue Mall, Royapettah by Padmashree Dr Kamal Haasan, award winning actor. Also present on the occasion was T R Ramachandran, CEO & MD, Aviva India. As part of Aviva’s Street to School program, the books from the wall will be used to educate thousands of underprivileged children supported by the Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan (Tamil Nadu) and leading NGOs like Save the Children India and Vidyarambam. Representatives from the NGOs were also present on the occasion.
Last year the Aviva Great Wall of Education was held in Delhi and collected over 123,000 books for the underprivileged children supported by the NGO - Save the Children. This year the activity will be conducted across three cities – Chennai, Kolkata and Delhi with Chennai happening from 5-9 September 2010. The activity was launched in Kolkata on 1 September, where it saw phenomenal success, with a large number of books being donated by the citizens till date.
Speaking on the occasion, T R Ramachandran, CEO & MD, Aviva India, said: “At Aviva, we recognize that Education is Insurance for a better future. We envisage a better, stronger, more educated India and for this there is a need to enrich these children who are the building blocks of our country’s future. In line with this thought, the ‘Aviva Great Wall of Education’ aims to improve the lives of thousands of underprivileged children by helping them into education.
"We launched this initiative last year where we collected more than 123,000 books in Delhi, which helped thousands of children. This overwhelming response has fuelled our ambition to make it even bigger this year and to expand the footprint to three cities. In the first phase of the activity this year in Kolkata, we have already collected a large number of books, and we look forward to making it a big success in Chennai as well.”
Speaking on the occasion, R Venkatesan IAS, state project director, Sarva Siksha Abhiyan, said: “We are happy to have partnered for the Aviva Great Wall of Education initiative. Our attempt at Sarva Shiksha Abhiyaan is to provide an opportunity for improving human capabilities to all children, through provision of community-owned quality education in a mission mode. The books collected from this initiative will go towards setting up of ‘Learning Corners’ across select Government Schools in the districts. We thank the people of Chennai for their generous contribution.”
Thomas Chandy, CEO, Save the Children, said: “I applaud Aviva for doing the book wall for a second year and extending it beyond the nation’s capital. There is no better gift than a book and in this case, the gift also ensures that hundreds of children from the most marginalized communities will have a chance at education. This being the year that the Right to Education Act has come into force, Save the Children is happy to participate in this humanitarian endeavour that Aviva has initiated.”
V Ranganathan, founder president, Vidyarambam Trust, said: “Vidyarambam has been bringing education to the doorstep of children in the rural areas for the past 8 years. A depressing scenario exists in many villages, where a lot of children can’t even afford a book, let alone good education. This initiative by Aviva to provide access to books to such children is remarkable and a way forward to provide good education. It is our pleasure to involve ourselves in this campaign. We are aiming to reach out to 10,000 children in 12 districts of Tamil Nadu through this”
In Chennai, the "Aviva Great Wall of Education" is presented by The Hindu and is supported by NDTV Hindu as media partner, Express Avenue as the venue partner, Landmark as the book store partner, and Chennai Live as the radio partner and the students of School of Planning and Architecture (Delhi) have designed the wall.
The five day donation drive will go on till 9 September, and has been activated across Chennai through drop boxes placed at various strategic locations, where people can come forward and donate books. In order to ensure maximum participation, donation boxes have been placed in 300 plus schools in the region, through which school children will not only be able to donate their text books and note books at the drop boxes, but also carry their contribution to Express Avenue and help build the wall.
Landmark will be setting up a kiosk at the venue where people will have the option to buy books for donating to the Aviva Great Wall of Education. Alternately, one can visit any of the Landmark stores in the city or log on to www.landmarkonthenet.com/great-wall-education to donate books for underprivileged children.
The Great Wall of Education, in its second year, is a significant step by Aviva, towards building a bright future for the underprivileged children and helping them into education. Aviva Life Insurance has partnered with CRY (Child Rights and You) and Save the Children to facilitate education (including other related factors that could prevent a child from attending school) for over 50,000 children by 2012 under the Street to School initiative. In the first year, Aviva will be reaching out to 20,000 children across nine projects in five states.
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For additional information, please contact:
Pooja Khan
Aviva India
E-mail: pooja.khan@avivaindia.com
Phone: 09811315510
Notes to editors:
About Aviva India
Aviva Life Insurance is a joint venture between Dabur Group and Aviva Group. Current paid up capital amounts to Rs 1,888 crore. Dabur Group is the 74% shareholder while Aviva Group holds 26%. Aviva Group is a UK based insurance company and one of the world’s oldest insurance groups, with a history dating back to 1696.
Founded in 1884, Dabur is one of India’s oldest and largest groups of companies with the group’s consolidated annual sales in excess of Rs 2,396 crores. A professionally managed company, it is the country’s leading producer of traditional healthcare products.
Aviva’s products have been designed to provide customers flexibility, transparency and value for money. We have been among the first companies to introduce Unit Linked products in the market.
Aviva has a unique need based sales approach through the “Financial Health Check” (FHC). The FHC is a free service administered by our FPAs (Financial Planning Advisers) for a need-based analysis of the customer’s long-term savings and insurance needs. Depending on the life stage and earnings of the customer, the Financial Health Check assesses and recommends the right insurance product for them.
Aviva is also keen to reach out to the underprivileged that have not had access to insurance so far. Through its association with BASIX (a micro financial institution) and other NGOs, it has been able to cover lakhs of lives.