Media > Product & Service

PROJECT AKSHAR (ALPHABETS) - GRADUATING BLUE-COLLAR TO WHITE-COLLAR

FP7/DXB, Dubai / SMARTLIFE / 2015

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Overview

Credits

OVERVIEW

ClientBriefOrObjective

In Dubai, learning English will help its many uneducated labourers get better jobs and salaries.

But with average monthly salaries of $220, and a hard life of 12-hour work shifts, they neither have the money nor time to educate themselves.

SmartLife, an NGO for Dubai's labourers, wanted to help them improve their status and quality of life.

Education was the best donation and charity we could give the labourers.

So, we created an educational initiative called Project Akshar (Alphabets), where we set out to graduate Dubai's labourers from blue-collar to white-collar.

Effectiveness

The project is transforming their lives of labour into lives of learning:

(1) 5000+ students graduated.

(2) 28% cleared job interviews for white-collar jobs.

(3) 12% started businesses back home.

(4) 23% got promoted to white-collar jobs from existing blue-collar jobs in the same companies.

(5) 37% got over 100% salary increases. Example: 1 labourer's monthly salary increased from $220 to $2200.

(6) The project is invited to join the Government’s ‘Happy Dubai’ initiative.

(7) All costs were pro bono ($0) courtesy our partners.

(8) Unprecedented earned media worth $430,000 across regional and worldwide TV, press, radio and social media.

Execution

Labour camps became Educational camps.

Transport buses became School buses.

Construction sites became Learning sites.

Mundane routines became Inspiring journeys.

Flashcards, an interactive Karaoke song, Print ads in vernacular media, Bus shelter ads around labour camps extended their learning.

We shared a number that they could give a missed call on. We called them back to enroll them.

To support the outdoor engagement, we created a social media app on Facebook, inviting Hindi-speaking people and typography fans to create and contribute their own words too.

A special edition designer book with the words was sold in bookstores to raise funds.

Strategy

We first launched free English classes on their days off. Fees = $0.

And to encourage Dubai's labourers to register and enroll, we showed them how easy it is to learn English.

Using effective visual learning techniques, we took words that are useful to them, wrote their English phonetic pronounciations in the Hindi script, and combined them with their visual representation, to create words that taught them English through their own language.

We placed hundreds of words like these, designed to look like school notepads, across their daily journey, turning Dubai into their blackboard.

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