India: Aviva Great Wall of Education receives phenomenal response from Mumbai

The Aviva Great Wall of Education, a book donation drive for the underprivileged children culminated into a book distribution ceremony today. Bollywood actress Amrita Rao and Gaurav Rajput, associate director marketing, Aviva India presented 111,506 books to the representatives of Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan and Save the Children India.

As part of Aviva’s Street to School program, the books from the wall will be used to move thousands of underprivileged children with Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan and Save the Children closer towards education. 

Speaking on the occasion, Gaurav Rajput, associate director marketing, Aviva India, said: “At Aviva, we believe that ‘Education is Insurance’ and we are truly grateful to the people of Mumbai for making the Aviva Great Wall of Education a big success. We have collected more than 111,500 books here, which will go towards building a brighter future for the underprivileged children by helping them into education. We appreciate the patronage of the people of Mumbai towards this noble cause.”

In Mumbai, the Aviva Great Wall of Education has High Street Phoenix as the venue partner, Landmark is the book store partner, Handpaper is the recycling partner and the students of School of Planning and Architecture (Delhi) have designed the wall.

Thomas Chandy, CEO, Save the Children, said: “It is heartwarming that Aviva has undertaken this book donation drive to benefit hundreds of children across India. And the people of Mumbai have demonstrated with great enthusiasm that they care about the education of children from the most marginalized communities. With a historic Right to Education Act now in place, every child between six and 14 has the right to elementary education. Save the Children will endeavour to ensure that this right becomes reality.”

The four day donation drive starting 2 December was activated across Mumbai through drop boxes placed at schools, corporates and residential apartments. Children from close to 200 schools actively donated their old text books, note books towards the cause. Many individuals have also come forward and donated books for the underprivileged children. Many who did not have relevant books to donate brought books from the Landmark stores.

The Aviva Great Wall of Education marks another step by Aviva, towards helping underprivileged children 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.

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