Wiesner India donated footwear to girl students and offered internship opportunity.

Also present to lend their support was Bhavna Jha, VP, Wiesner India.

The Rewasan Government School, Nuh is one of the 10 schools revitalized in the region under the Support My School campaign with facilities such as access to safe drinking water, separate toilets for boys and girls, promotion of physical sports and recreation

The Support My School campaign recently celebrated completion of 300 schools under the initiative.

Nuh, March 2014: With yet another year of delivering its purpose of providing necessary amenities in rural and semi-urban areas, Coca-Cola India along with Wiesner India today celebrated and recognized the success and potential of girl students in Rewasan Government School, Nuh, under the Support My School campaign. Bhavna Jha, VP, Wiesner India, gave away footwear to the girls in the schools and offered internship opportunities to them, in recognition of their performance. The Rewasan Government School, Nuh is one of the 10 schools revitalized in the region under the Support My School campaign.

Bhavna Jha, VP, Wiesner India said, “We are proud to be part of this campaign which has been making waves for over 3 years now in facilitating education in rural and semi-urban India. School years are an important phase, as they lay the foundation for the child’s development. The amenities being provided under this campaign are instrumental in not just bringing students back to school but empowering entire communities for a stronger base in the field of education. We look forward to creating more of such life-impacting change for the children of the country.”

Launched in January 2011, the Support My School campaign aims to create happy and healthy learning environments for students across rural and semi-urban India by providing schools with basic amenities such as access to water and proper toilets for girls and boys. Over 43,000 students across 10 states were impacted over Season 1 of the campaign. Season 2 has extended this reach to over 15 states and more than 300 schools, taking this happiness toll to more than 1 lakh students.

Talking about the campaign Mr. Sameer Pathak, Senior Manager, PAC at Coca-Cola India, “In India, education is one of most pressing challenges. Support My School is trying to change this by providing schools in rural and semi-urban areas with better access to sanitation, water, playing facilities, libraries, computer centers and a more welcoming and learning environment . It is a project close to my heart, not just because of its cause, but because of the way it embodies Coca-Cola’s core values. I also want to thank Wiesner to provide the children out here with such a wonderful opportunity by offering internships after completing their school education. This year has been very successful as we reached the 300 milestone, of revitalizing schools across India. With each passing year, we aim to further strengthen our vision by continuing to build & support more schools.”

Thanking the campaign partners, Mr. Ved Prakash, Principal, Rewasan School said, “The Support My School (SMS) campaign has changed everything about our school. Now children attend school regularly because the whole environment of the school has changed. It feels wonderful to be chosen under this campaign. On behalf of schools principals across all SMS schools, I would like to thank all the partners on initiating this effort and making a difference to the lives of all our students. Thank you Coca-Cola for this opportunity.”

About Support My School Campaign

Coca-Cola India joined hands with NDTV to launch Support My School in association with UN-Habitat, Charities Aid Foundation (CAF), Pearson Foundation and Tata Teleservices. It undertakes the following core activities:

Provision of improved access to water
Appropriate sanitation facility for girls and boys
Improvement in the overall infrastructure and environment
Provision for sports and recreation facilities and
Recharging groundwater through rainwater harvesting

With such necessary amenities in place, schools are able to provide a cleaner and healthier environment more conducive to learning.

Education in rural India suffers from several issues where lack of sanitation is a key reason for absenteeism and dropouts amongst students. This is especially noted in young girls who are forced to quit as they enter adolescence due to a lack of clean and functional toilets. Children are also likely to fall sick more often without clean water to drink or to wash hands. Support My School endeavors to eliminate this basic concern by spreading the initiative across the country with the help of campaign partners to execute the same.

About Coca-Cola India

Coca-Cola India is one of the country’s leading beverage companies, offering a range of healthy, safe, high quality, refreshing beverage options to consumers. Over the last 20 years, ever since its re-entry in 1993, the company has been refreshing consumers with its beverage products – Coca-Cola, Diet Coke, Thums Up, Fanta, Limca, Sprite, Maaza, Minute Maid range of juices, Georgia and Georgia gold range of hot and cold tea and coffee options, Kinley and Bonaqua packaged drinking water, Kinley Club Soda and BURN. The Company along with its bottling partners, through a strong network of over 2.2 million retail outlets, touches the lives of millions of consumers, at a rate of more than 500 servings per second. Its brands are some of the most preferred and most sold beverages in the country – Thums Up and Sprite – being the top two selling sparkling beverages.

The Coca-Cola system in India has registered 30 consecutive quarters of growth, 19 of them being double digit. It believes in the long term growth potential of the country and this system is committed to invest US$ 5 billion in its operations between 2012 and 2020. The system already provides direct employment to 25,000 people and indirect employment to 150,000 people.

The Coca-Cola system in India is contributing in its own small way to building sustainable communities and reducing its own environmental footprint. Some of our community development programs include the “Support My School” program – a movement for healthy, active, happy schools, the ‘Parivartan’ and ‘Pragati’ retailer training program, Career Development centers to train youth and make them employable, women empowerment program as a part of the global 5BY20 campaign, Unnati – a sustainable mango farming project etc.

For further information on the company’s India operations and its products, please visit: www.coca-colaindia.com.