Rajesh Kumar Singh, IAS, District Magistrate, Hapur dedicate facilities at Purv Madhyamik Vidhyalaya

Prateek Dubey, Zonal Head, PAC, Hindustan Coca-Cola Beverages Pvt. Ltd. and Nida Hasan, Project Coordinator – WASH at Plan International (India Chapter) also present at the dedication

School revitalized under the Support My School Campaign by Hindustan Coca-Cola Beverages Pvt. Ltd. and Plan India with support from NGO Gram Niyojan Kendra

Schools now has upgraded, functional and separate toilets for boys and girls, improved access to clean and safe drinking water, amenities to encourage sports and recreation, as well as a rain water harvesting facility

Support My School recently celebrated completion of 300 schools in India

Dasna, 20 May 2014: Support My School, an initiative to build Happy, Healthy and Active Schools for students in rural and semi-urban areas, dedicated the first school in the Dasna cluster today. Purv Madhyamik Vidhyalaya , Udayrampur in Nangla village, Dasna was revitalized by Hindustan Coca-Cola Beverages Pvt. Ltd. and NGO partner Plan India, with upgraded, functional and separate toilets for boys and girls, improved access to clean and safe drinking water, amenities to encourage sports and recreation, as well as a rain water harvesting facility. The Support My School Campaign has revitalized 300 schools across the country since 2011.

Mr. Rajesh Kumar Singh, IAS, District Magistrate, Hapur, dedicated the revitalized facilities to the school Principal, teachers, students and the community. Also present were Prateek Dubey, Zonal Head, PAC, Hindustan Coca-Cola Beverages Pvt. Ltd. and Nida Hasan, Project Coordinator – WASH at Plan International (India Chapter).

Speaking about the initiative, Prateek Dubey, Zonal Head, PAC, Hindustan Coca-Cola Beverages Pvt. Ltd. said, “Support My School has seen tremendous success over the last 3 years and has been a leading campaign in showing the way towards building holistic, happy and healthy schools for our children. We are very happy that we have the support of national cricketers like Mohammed Shami, the District Magistrate and the local government to make this campaign a reality. We are fortunate to have partners like Plan India and Gram Niyojan Kendra who implemented the facilities in the school here in Dasna.”

Nida Hasan, Project Coordinator – WASH at Plan International (India Chapter) said, “We joined Support My School almost 2 years ago and it has been a fulfilling and rewarding journey. With the first school in Dasna, the campaign is spreading its wings and we hope to continue this successful journey for many more seasons to come!”

Thanking the campaign for the revitalization work done in their school, Arshad Ali, Principal, Purv Madhyamik Vidhyalaya Udayrampur Nangla said, “Support My School has given a new lease of life to our school and this has really helped boost morale. Thank you to Hindustan Coca-Cola, Plan India and Gram Niyojan Kendra for bringing this transformation to our school.”

Support My School campaign began as a response to several studies which indicated that a large number of schools in rural & semi-urban areas lacked basic amenities leading to accelerated student drop-out rates. The campaign has been creating awareness about the conditions of schools in these areas, fostering a private-public partnership where corporate organizations step in to reinstall basic facilities in these government run schools.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.

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 31 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