~Support My School will lend a hand to PM’s ‘Sanitation in every School’ pledge~

Coca-Cola India and SRF Foundation commemorate completion of 10 schools in Nuh with dedication of Govt. Middle School, Sonkh

Mr. Gabriel Meneses, Group Director Human Resources Europe at The Coca-Cola Company Mr. Sanjay June – District Commissioner –Mewat, Mr. Sameer Wadhawan, VP – HR, Coca-Cola India and Dr. Suresh Reddy, Director – SRF Foundation dedicate the facilities

Since implementation of Support My School, student enrollment has increased and the school has been recognized as a model school among 19 villages under the Mewat Rural Education Programme (MREP)

Support My School provides improved access to safe water, adequate sanitation, sports and recreation facilities, a clean and green environment and a rain water harvesting structure.

Nuh, September 10th 2014: Coca-Cola’s Support My School campaign, an initiative to build Happy, Healthy and Active Schools for students in rural and semi-urban areas, today commemorated revitalization of 10 schools in Nuh under the program. Mr. Gabriel Meneses – Group Director Human Resources Europe at The Coca-Cola Company, Sanjay June – DC Mewat, Mr. Pradeep Godara HCS- ADC, Mewat were present to dedicate the newly installed facilities at the Govt. Middle School, Sonkh, along with Mr. Sameer Wadhawan, VP – HR, Coca-Cola India, Dr. Suresh Reddy, Director – SRF Foundation, Mr. Ramesh Chander Sharma, DPC, Mewat and Dinesh Shastry – District Education Officer (DEO). Today’s dedication marks the completion of 10 schools in Nuh district and the Support My School Campaign is set to reach 18 schools in the region by the end of 2014.

Since the implementation of Support My School over the past 6 months, the Govt. Middle School, Sonkh has witnessed tremendous transformation. 100 new students have been enrolled in the school, including 60 who were previously studying in private schools in the area. The rregularity of students attending school has also increased from 50% to 90%.The Govt. Middle School has also received a Category A rating under the Mewat Rural Education Programme (MREP), up from Category C, and has also been recognized as a model school among 19 villages in the region.

Speaking on the occasion, Mr. Sameer Wadhawan, VP – HR, Coca-Cola India said, “It gives us all great pleasure to see the milestones Support My School has achieved over the last few years. I congratulate the Principal, teachers and students for making this a model school in the Nuh district. It is a big achievement. Support My School has become a national movement towards healthy, happy schools for children across India and we hope to continue the momentum by announcing the revitalization of 8 more schools in Nuh starting with the Sonkh Govt. Middle School today.”

Coca-Cola India’s Support My School, a Sanitation PLUS solution is implemented by grassroot NGOs. It recently celebrated completion of over 350 schools in India in 18 states across the country, impacting 125,000 children with an investment of over INR 20 crores so far. The funds invested in the facilities were raised from over 50 corporate donors and partners, with Coca-Cola contributing nearly 7 crores till date.

Thanking the campaign for the revitalization work done in their school, Mr. Rahish Khan, principal, Govt. Middle Schoolsaid, “Thank you Support My School for the work they have done. The students are benefitting from the new facilities and it is because of these efforts we received the Category ‘A’ rating from the Mewat Rural Education Programme. I’m very proud to be the principal of such a school. The students, teachers, staff are all more involved and the parents and community members are contributing towards the development of the school. So thanks to Coca-Cola and SRF Foundation for their effort that has brought this transformation to our school.”

Dr. Reddy, Director, SRF Foundation said “SRF Foundation is very happy to have been able to partner for the Support My School Campaign. The campaign has been creating awareness about the conditions of schools in regions across India. Through partnerships between NGO’s like SRF Foundation and corporates like Coca-Cola and Tetra Pak, we are together taking a small step towards revitalizing basic facilities in these government-run schools. We are very glad that the enrollment and community involvement in this school has improved so much since the campaign and we wish the school all the very best.”

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.
SMS 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 32 consecutive quarters of growth, 20 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 24,000 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 ‘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.