Why is this work relevant for PR?

India has the world’s largest student population of which about 90 million don’t have access to quality education; almost 8 million have never even been inside a school. ‘The Open Door Project’ is an initiative with a powerful proposition and potential for huge social impact. By bringing attention to this important initiative and its potential to impact the future of disadvantaged students, important stakeholders in the education ecosystem were inspired to join the movement. All this has been achieved at a time when the country is in midst of national elections and ‘soft’ news doesn’t get much space in media.

Background

While India has millions of children that do not have access to quality education - education that can improve their life prospects, at the same time, India has over 350,000 private schools that have invested in infrastructure and teachers to cater to the more affluent sections of the population. The PR brief was to sensitize media about the importance of ‘The Open Door Project’ as a pioneering initiative in the Indian education space. Position it effectively as a movement that seeks to augment efforts to fix India’s broken education system. All this could be achieved with one simple act – that of private schools opening their doors to these disadvantaged children – after school hours.

Describe the creative idea (20% of vote)

While India has some good private schools with great infrastructure, they wastefully sit idle once the schools shut after classes every afternoon. The idea was simply to open a door and provide access to the most underprivileged. ‘The Open Door Project’ was created when The Millennium World School opened its doors to underprivileged children after regular classes and devoted its own infrastructure, resources, and teachers. It also reached out to volunteers, activists and NGOs to be part of the movement with a short film and an on-ground activation. The outreach involved carrying the message through marginalized communities and neighborhoods to drive enrollments. What this one school has demonstrated is that the potential for transformation is huge. If the 350,000 odd private schools in India each take just 100 kids, we will have 30 million children getting access to quality education.

Describe the strategy (30% of vote)

It is normally difficult to get share of voice for softer, human-interest stories in a ‘breaking-news’ oriented media. This idea was presented as a breakthrough project with an implementable basis – something that had proved itself and can be implemented by others as well. We brought the ‘good news’ potential to the interest of media – in a world torn by strife, a piece of simple feel-good, heart-warming news.

Describe the execution (20% of vote)

We networked support through multiple angles – NGOs from the education sector, stakeholders – all became pegs for stories from different standpoints. We used the elitist tag – threw the gauntlet to other private schools to follow the example – and made media an accomplice. This allowed us a free run with an otherwise blasé media, which tends to see this as boutique news. The result was that the story became a campaign - and more and more schools were compelled to consider partnerships of a similar kind. Stories were seeded around the launch film ‘Bhukkad’ that movingly portrayed an impoverished boy hungry for education. Important data was collated to present the criticality of the issue and the genius solution provided by ‘The Open Door Project’. Media attention was secured by holding a candle to the efforts by one such school.

List the results (30% of vote) – must include at least two of the following tiers:

• We garnered coverage in important media outlets – print and online, reaching education stakeholders and target audiences that included policy makers, the K12 education community, NGOs, parents, students and volunteers. • The thrust of the media outreach was the successful incubation of an idea for inclusion of kids that were out of the formal, quality school education network. • In a short span of two weeks over 42 media impressions have been generated in leading dailies and online coverage, that include almost all important, education related media with all the media stories carrying the key message in their headlines. Many carried pictures of disadvantaged children studying at one such school. • ‘The Open Door Project’ trended on Twitter two weeks in a row. • Many opinion leaders, post learning about the initiative from media, took to their social media handles to support the movement. • Bollywood celebrities, among the biggest influencers in India, added to the momentum with a select few putting out supportive tweets. • In just a few weeks six of the leading NGOs working with such children came on board ‘The Open Door Project’ and many more have reached out to join hands. • Total media impression (till date): 42 • Total reach: 21.6 million • Earned media: INR 11 Million (USD 157,400 appx.)