India has the world’s largest population of young minds and could be a global economic powerhouse if not for a broken education system. There’s a real risk that instead of reaping its demographic dividends, the country might instead find itself crippled with the world’s largest population of illiterates. Millennium World School one of India’s largest chains of elite schools with over 35,000 students wanted to do something about the issue. While governments have been trying, the quality of education and infrastructure is severely lacking. Absentee teachers and broken amenities mean public schools lack even basic facilities. The objective was to find a way for the school to be relevant, not just for its students but to try to fundamentally change society itself. The challenge was that it’s not only the lack of infrastructure that is crippling, it is also the societal mindset of apathy, that nothing really can be anyway.

Demonstrating that change is possible to create a movement.

While India has some good private schools with great infrastructure, they remain underused 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 where 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 on-ground activation. The outreach involved carrying the message through marginalized communities and neighborhoods to drive enrollments. What just one school has demonstrated is that the potential for transformation is huge. If the 350,000 odd private schools in India each took just 100 kids, we will have 30 million children getting access to quality education.

It is normally difficult to get a 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.

Being the change, we wish to see.

In true grassroots fashion, the campaign eschewed big budget media spends in favour of directly reaching out with on-ground activation and community level contact programs. It centered around a short film (titled “Bhukkad” or ‘the hungry kid’) that shows a young child hungry for learning while battling difficult conditions growing up in a red-light district. It shows that the hunger for learning of a curious child trumps the most adverse of situations and circumstances. The film transforms the hopeless, faceless millions into the face of a kid who chooses to rise above his surroundings, hungry to learn, making the viewer invested in ensuring the doors of learning are never shut for him. By partnering with others in the same education space, this movement demonstrates that it’s a collective endeavour, the beginning of lasting change.

The campaign impacted lives at a grass root level by enrolling children for better education and a better future. Within a few weeks, it galvanized activists and NGOs into action. In only two months, it achieved:

• Participation from 55 school campuses across the country

• Involvement from NGOs – Salam Balak Trust, Kat Katha, Teach India, AIDNOIDA, Kolkata Rista and Learning Links Foundation

• Total media impressions (till date): 42 million (PR) + 7 million (digital and social)

• Total reach: 25 million

• Earned media: INR 11 Million (USD 157,400 appx.). This is significant as coverage for education related coverage is minuscule.

Most important of all, the campaign has shown that the possibilities are enormous as more schools join in the initiative and more children walk into the open doors of these schools, gaining access to quality education, which is their right, and satiating their hunger for learning.