CSR: Books For Right To Education
It is rightly said that Education is the key to success. It is like a light of dawn after an extended darkness of ignorance, illiteracy, poverty and everything else that holds us back from becoming a superpower. Government of India has realised the importance of education and is working towards providing quality education to every individual in the country.
Books are enablers to education. And in order to support the cause of education as a right to every individual, Alibaba Group, in association with Ratna Nidhi Charitable Trust had launched a social initiative known as Mission Million Books.
Mission Million Books is a pan India initiative aimed at providing the underserved with access to quality educational material for their growth and advancement. The project seeks to donate 1 million books to schools and colleges in India, to help students in their journey for education. The organisations work with its partners to secure books through donations from across the country, subsequently providing them to unprivileged schools and colleges for free. Several partners have supported this initiative – including Ecom Express, Paytm Mall, Hindustan Times, Carnival Cinemas, Stones2Milestones, World Bank Book Project and Nawa Samaj Mandal.
“They say reading is to the mind what exercise is to the body. It’s a pity that many deserving, curious children and youth in our country do not even have access to good quality reading material,” said Mr. Vinay Bhartia, Senior Vice President – Strategic Partnership, Alibaba.com
The fourth book donation drive was hosted by the two partners in Mumbai on Apr. 24. Representatives from over 1000 schools and colleges came to handpick books that would help their students by providing better quality reading material. On display were over 350,000 books ranging from storybooks and textbooks on science, social studies, engineering and more. With this drive, the Mission Million Books initiative has successfully empowered over 2.5 million students across more than 2000 schools and colleges across Maharashtra, by collecting and donating over 700,000 books so far.
“Our endeavour is to provide good quality reading material to as many youngsters in the country as possible. We are grateful to everyone for supporting us on this journey,” Mr. Bhartia added.
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Regards,
The CSR Journal Team
