India: Aviva Great Wall of Education presented by the Hindustan Times comes to Mumbai
The Aviva Great Wall of Education, a book donation drive for the underprivileged children, was launched today at High Street Phoenix, Lower Parel, by popular Bollywood actress, Deepika Padukone. Also present on the occasion were Gaurav Rajput, associate director marketing, Aviva India, Mayank Shekhar, National Culture editor, Hindustan Times and Rajendra Kalkar, centre director, High Street Phoenix. 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 Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan and Save the Children India. Representatives from NGOs were also present on the occasion.
In Mumbai, the Aviva Great Wall of Education is presented by The Hindustan Times. The initiative is supported by High Street Phoenix as the venue partner, Landmark as the book store partner, Handpaper as the recycling partner, and the students of School of Planning and Architecture (Delhi) have designed the wall. Croma has also supported the initiative.
Speaking on the occasion, Gaurav Rajput, associate director marketing, 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 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 four cities. We have collected over 850,000 books in Chennai, Kolkata and Delhi this year, and we look forward to enthusiastic participation from the citizens of Mumbai.”
Shantanu Bhanja, VP marketing, Hindustan Times said: “It is great to see that a simple idea that we developed with Aviva last year has now become a big movement. We sincerely hope that this initiative, which stems from our core purpose of bringing meaningful change in the lives of our readers, becomes a calendar event for Mumbai. And with the active participation of Mumbaiites, we hope to get to the one million books mark, building on and surpassing the efforts made at Delhi, Kolkata and Chennai.”
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.”
Rajendra Kalkar, centre director, High Street Phoenix said: “We see this as a very unique initiative being taken to spread, encourage and kindle the opportunities in children to read and learn to read. High Street Phoenix lending itself to this cause reiterates our cause to give the deeper social value and the complete retail experience we extend to our visitors and customers. We most sincerely hope that the objective to raise the Aviva Great Wall of Education in Mumbai at our centre will break all records across the other metros being conducted pan India.”
The four day donation drive will go on till 5 December, and has been activated across Mumbai 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 around 200 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 High Street Phoenix, Lower Parel, and help build the wall.
Landmark has a store at the Mall, where people will have the option to buy especially packaged 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.landmark.com 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 2013 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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