Having completed 600 schools in the previous seasons of Support my school campaign, season 3 purports to make it to 1000 schools to the campaign by the end of 2017. Nearly 200,000 children today receive access to better sanitation, water, playing and similar facilities. Effects of the campaign can be seen through the upward trend in enrolment figures and children attendance data.
Support My School campaign is a humble initiative towards enabling children in rural and semi- urban Indian gain access to education in a healthy and active learning environment
The Support My School campaign was started early in the January 2011 by NDTV and Coca-Cola to spread awareness on the state of schools in rural areas of the country.
The initiative initially aimed to improve the lives of school going children by providing the following five components in 100 government aided schools:
- Improved Access to Water
- Improved access to sanitation by providing toilet facilities separately for girls and boys
- Providing activity and sports facilities
- Environmental upkeep & Rainwater harvesting (based on need)
- Partner led intervention to enhance the overall education ecosystem
Support My School is a public private partnership to empower the underprivileged sections by providing them basic facilities in the school. Along with NDTV and Coca-Cola, various other partners like UN-Habitat, Charities Aid Foundation (CAF), World Vision, Pearson Foundation and Sulabh International have been key enablers in the complete process throughout.
Various studies suggest that lack of basic amenities like sanitation, water and fundamental infrastructure creates a non-conducive environment in the schools for the children eventually leading to increasing rates of absenteeism and in some cases, dropping out of school. Some girls are even forced to quit school and stay at home when they enter adolescent stage as there are no toilets in the schools.
An innovative initiative was organised to raise funds for the campaign by NDTV on 30th November which was telecasted live from 2:00 p.m. to 8:00 p.m. It was called as ‘Telethon’ with the plans of reaching upto their goal of 1000 schools, 23 states and 300,000 children.
During the telethon, famous celebrities like Venkatesh Kini, Sourav Ganguly, Ranveer Singh, Sonali Bendre and Raju Hirani took the stage to raise funds for the campaign. The campaign witnessed various performances by the celebrities, Sourav’s Pathshala on batting and strategy for the improvement of education by brains of Infosys, Bharti, JP Morgan and HSBC.
Hoping this multi partnered campaign will help us reach to our goal better and faster, commented the host of the show Vikram Chandra, CEO of NDTV India.
