Care India ropes in corporate bigwigs for girl education

Food products major General Mills and pharmaceutical giant MSD have joined hands with an NGO Care to help raise funds for girl education and health in India.

Kickstarting the NGO Care’s project “Join My Village” aimed at connecting masses through social media in Uttar Pradesh’s Barabanki district, the two corporate houses have pledged to donate one dollar for every click on the website.

Actress Juhi Chawla launched the project ‘Join My Village’ here that will connect masses through social media.

“It is great to see such big corporate groups coming ahead to give girls a better option to life. Join My Village is about engagement with the people in an age when we all are digitally connected,” Chawla said at the launch ceremony.

“Every single click on the like button on the Facebook page of Join My Village will get us a dollar for the development of the girl child. Almost everybody is connected through Facebook. It is good to use technology this way,” the Bollywood actress added.

Through the click-to-commit initiative, the partners aim at collecting around 2.5 million dollars by the end of this year. Started in 2009 in Malawi, Africa, Join My Village has helped the NGO pitch in $1.4 million to help over 2,000 families.

The expansion to India will start with Barabanki, in the heart of Awadh region of Uttar Pradesh.

“Our project will revolve around maternal health and education. We will look for expansion of the field projects after analysing the success of our project in Barabanki,” said Muhammad Musa, Care India country director.

He added that that Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, Orissa, Chhattisgarh and Jharkhand have always been the focus area for the NGO.