The Aviva Great Wall of Education, a book donation drive for the underprivileged children, was launched today at City Centre, Salt Lake City by His Excellency Shri MK Narayanan, the Governor of West Bengal.
- A book donation drive for underprivileged children supported by the Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan, Save the Children and CINI ASHA.
The "Aviva Great Wall of Education", a book donation drive for the underprivileged children, was launched today at City Centre, Salt Lake City by His Excellency Shri MK Narayanan, the Governor of West Bengal. Also present on the occasion were Mithun Chakraborty, award winning actor, T R Ramachandran, CEO & MD, Aviva India, and Harsh Neotia, chairman, Ambuja Realty.
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 (West Bengal) and leading NGOs like Save the Children India and CINI ASHA. 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 Kolkata happening from 1-5 September.
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, a stronger and a more educated India for which there is a need to enrich the 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. We look forward to enthusiastic participation from the citizens of Kolkata.”
Speaking on the occasion, Mrs Choten Lama, state project director, Paschim Banga Sarva Shiksha Mission, said: "The Paschim Banga Sarva Shiksha Mission is very happy to be a partner in this unique ‘Aviva Great Wall of Education Initiative’.
"Though textbooks are distributed to every child (from the age of six years to 14 years) by the Government under Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan, I would like to appeal to the people of Kolkata to donate other children’s books for their joyful reading and enrichment. The books received under this Initiative would be distributed to schools whose students belong to disadvantaged and weaker social groups."
Thomas Chandy, CEO, Save the Children, said: “I applaud Aviva for doing the book wall for the 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.”
Rajib K Haldar, Additional Director, Child In Need Institute (CINI) said: “The ‘Aviva Great Wall of Education’ is a commendable effort by Aviva, towards building a brilliant future for underprivileged children and helping them off the streets and into education. Education of a child helps to develop child’s personality, talents, mental and physical abilities to their fullest potential.
"This endeavour of Aviva Book wall is a unique and excellent effort to reach out to the un-reached which they would not have the fortune to access into. From CINI ASHA every effort will be made to provide the children with this precious gift of book that will help them to build their future.”
The five day donation drive will go on till 5 September, and has been activated across Kolkata 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 City Centre and help build the wall.
Starmark 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 Starmark stores in the city or log-on to www.starmark.in to donate books for underprivileged children.
In Kolkata, the "Aviva Great Wall of Education" is supported by Ambuja Realty as the venue partner, Starmark as the book store partner, Emami as the recycling partner and My Friends FM as the radio partner. The students of School of Planning and Architecture (Delhi) have designed the wall.
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
Rolly Agarwal/ Shraddha Yawalkar
Adfactors PR
E-mail: rolly.agarwal83@gmail.com / shraddha.yawalkar@adfactorspr.com
Phone: 09830030391 / 09920552245
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.