The Middle East has often been characterized by highly centralized power that favors the wealthy and powerful. With the region also characterized by the economic and political instability, Community Social Responsibility becomes all the more important for the brands to build emotional affinity with people. Community Social Responsibility is today’s Corporate Social Responsibility. A brand doing something good for their community is a key driver to win people’s share of hearts and minds, especially given the prevalent environment.

As a result, a lot of brands in the region have become more conscious about how they are perceived as enablers of community and social goodness and how they make a real positive difference. And they have engaged more actively in CSR programs to improve their community goodwill.

But unlike bigger brands and bigger NGOs, newer and relatively smaller NGOs do not have budgets to increase the awareness for the causes they support, nor to create a widespread difference for the causes they endorse.

And they have no branded content to make their brand and their cause more talked about.

SmartLife, an NGO for Dubai's blue-collared labourers, needed branded content vs. traditional advertising, to garner more awareness and support for its cause.

In Dubai, learning English will help its many 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.

We created Project Akshar (Alphabets), a branded content program to graduate Dubai's labourers from blue collar to white collar for $0.

We first launched free English classes.

And to encourage labourers to register and enroll, we first needed to show them how easy it is to learn English.

So, using effective visual learning techniques:

a) We took words that are useful to them.

b) Wrote their English phonetic pronounciations in the Hindi script.

c) We then combined them with their visual representation integrated into the Hindi alphabet.

d) The redesigned words became branded content that teach labourers English through their own language.

We then placed hundreds of words like these, designed to look like school notepads, across their daily journey, across Dubai. We printed a number, which they could give a missed call on. And we called them back to enroll them into the classes.

We turned Dubai into a blackboard for them. Labour camps became Educational camps. Transport buses became School buses. Construction sites became Learning sites. Mundane routines became Inspiring journeys.

We extended their learning across channels by creating: Learning flashcards, an Interactive karaoke song, Print ads in vernacular media, Bus shelter ads around labour camps.

Project Akshar (Alphabets) has transformed the labourers' lives of labour into lives of learning with 5000+ students who have graduated so far in 12 months, going on to get promoted, get new jobs, higher salaries, start businesses back home and changing the cycle of poverty.

We placed hundreds of specially designed words, on branded printed material that looked like school notepads, across the labourers' daily journey, across Dubai. We printed a number, which they could give a missed call on. And we called them back to enroll them into the classes.

We turned Dubai into a blackboard for them. Labour camps became Educational camps. Transport buses became School buses. Construction sites became Learning sites. Mundane routines became Inspiring journeys.

We extended their learning across channels by creating: Learning flashcards, an Interactive karaoke song, Print ads in vernacular media, Bus shelter ads around labour camps.

Project Akshar (Alphabets) is transforming their lives of labour into lives of learning:

(1) 5000+ students have graduated thus far in 12 months.

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

(3) 12% launched businesses back home.

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

(5) 37% got higher salaries; including certain workers moving from 800 AED ($220) per month to 8000 AED ($2200) per month in just 12 months!

(6) The project has been invited to be a part of the Dubai Government’s ‘Happy Dubai’ initiative.

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

(8) SmartLife generated unprecedented earned media for its brand worth $430,000 across TV, Press, Radio and Social Media regionally and worldwide. Among many others, the project was endorsed by Timeout, Dubai One, The National, Gulf News, XPRESS, Expatwoman.com, Dubai Municipality, Emirates 24/7, GEMS Winchester School, City 7, Dubai Media Inc, Manorama News, Manoramaonline.com, Khaleej Times, Gulf Madhyamam daily as well as Contagious, Best ads, Euro News, Act Responsible, Ad Forum, Ebola Industries, Digital Synopsis, Creative Criminals, Little Black Book and Communicate.

(9) Won the Grand Prix for Good and 8 Golds at Dubai Lynx 2015.

Project Akshar (Alphabets) is a branded content and education program to graduate Dubai's labourers from blue collar to white collar for $0.

We launched free English classes.

And to encourage labourers to register and enroll, we created redesigned words that themselves became branded content to teach labourers English through their own language.

We placed hundreds of SmartLife branded words like these, designed to look like school notepads, across their daily journey, across Dubai.

We turned Dubai into a learning blackboard for them. Labour camps became Educational camps. Transport buses became School buses. Construction sites became Learning sites. Mundane routines became Inspiring journeys.

We extended their learning across channels by creating: Learning flashcards, an Interactive karaoke song, Print ads in vernacular media, Bus shelter ads around labour camps.

The online video of the project, along with the stories of the labourers’ successes, became further branded content, generating regional and worldwide PR.