COCA-COLA AND PARTNERS CELEBRATE THE SUPPORT MY SCHOOL CAMPAIGN REACHING 300 ACTIVE HEALTHY AND HAPPY SCHOOLS MILESTONE

Celebrating the milestone of 300thschool under the nationally acclaimed Coca-Cola NDTV Support My School campaign, Miss Lisa Borders, Chair of The Coca-Cola Foundation and Vice President, Global Community Connections, The Coca-Cola Company along with Dr. Suresh Reddy, Director, SRF Foundation dedicated the Rewasan Govt. School in Nuh, Haryana to the students and community

With this dedication, The Support My School campaign has reached revitalization in 300 schools since its launch in January 2011, touching the lives of over 1 lakh students making it one of the biggest initiatives of its kind in India

Accompanying them were Mr. Pramod Kumar, State RTE Coordinator, Dept. of Elementary Education, Haryana; Mr. Dinesh Shastry, District Education Officer (DEO), Mewat and Mr. Pradeep Godara (HCS), Additional Dy. Commissioner (ADC), Mewat

The school has been revitalized with contributions from campaign partners SRF Foundation, Enrich Agro and Tetrapak

The Rewasan Govt. School in Nuh is one of the 10 schools revitalized in the region under the Coca-Cola NDTV 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

Nuh (Haryana), 3rd March 2014: India’s leading campaign to support infrastructure across rural and semi-urban schools – Support My School – today hit the 300 milestone with the completion of the most recent school in Nuh, Haryana. Coca-Cola India, along with SRF Foundation, Enrich Agro and other partners dedicated the new facilities created at Rewasan Govt. School in Nuh to the students and people of the community. With this dedication, over 1 lakh students across India can now claim access to better sanitation, water, playing facilities, libraries, computer centres and other basic infrastructure. Over the last three years, over 100 partners including leading foundations, corporates, NGOs and celebrities have joined the campaign and help drive it towards the milestone of 300 schools.

Present to mark the momentous occasion were Mr. Pramod Kumar, State RTE Coordinator, Dept. of Elementary Education, Haryana; Miss Lisa Borders, Chair of The Coca-Cola Foundation and Vice President, Global Community Connections, The Coca-Cola Company along with Dr. Suresh Reddy, Director, SRF Foundation; Mr. Dinesh Shastry, District Education Officer (DEO), Mewat and Mr. Pradeep Godara (HCS), Additional Dy. Commissioner (ADC), Mewat.

To mark the occasion, students of the Rewasan Govt. School signed on a pledge affirming that they will strive their best and will attend school without fail. Students also proudly showcased science and arts projects to the visiting guests, giving a glimpse of the potential found in rural government schools across India. At the function held today, certificates were also given to teachers who have attended the Teacher Training Program conducted by Mr. Harsh Jajoo of Mindbodhi consultants.

Present at the event were several community members and local leaders. The Support My School campaign has been able to help communities take ownership of change. Through the campaign, the communities have been brought into the positive cycle of change and in several parts of the country they have taken a leading role. The campaign has been made successful through the Golden Triangle partnership model, where Private Sector and Civil Society came together in Government Schools with help of Government officials and locally elected leaders, thus bringing all the stakeholders together. This model has helped the campaign gain steam and reaches the 300 school mark.

Enthused by the progress made by the initiative, Miss Lisa Borders, Chair of The Coca-Cola Foundation and Vice President, Global Community Connections, The Coca-Cola Company said, “I am happy to see the Golden Triangle model coming together so wonderfully well to make such a wide ranging impact on ground. I would like to thank all the partners of the Campaign, who have come together to build the momentum and drive change into the schools and the communities around India. The Coca-Cola Foundation is very happy to be part of Support My School campaign. It feels great to see this initiative evolve from being a campaign into becoming a platform. We aspire to work together to take this campaign forward and help create a welcoming and caring environment in schools for our children.”

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 over 1 lakh students till now.

Dr. Suresh Reddy, Director, SRF Foundation said, “SRF Foundation has always been committed to providing quality education and the transformation of the current school systems in rural and semi-urban areas of India. Our journey with Support My School has been very exciting and we are proud to be part of this dedication today. As Season 2 moves towards completion, we look forward to creating more of such life-impacting change for the children of the country.”

Thanking the campaign partners, Mr. Ved Prakash, Principal, Rewasan School said, “The Support My School (SMS) campaign has given our school a new lease of life and helped us fulfill our aspiration of building an efficient school. 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.”

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