The Millennium Schools
THE BRIEF
To highlight the Open Door Project, a project encouraging private schools to open their doors to disadvantaged children after school hours;to underscore the importance of the initiative and its potential to improve the future of disadvantaged students; to inspire stakeholders in the education ecosystem to join the movement.
WHAT WE DID?
The campaign message hinged on a simple proposition: India has millions of children whodo not have access to quality education that can improve their 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 society. All this high-quality infrastructure remains idle inthe second half of the day and can be used to benefit disadvantaged students. The PR campaign focused on sensitizing media and non-media stakeholders about the importance of The Open Door Project (TOPD) as a pioneering initiative in the Indian education space.We positioned TOPD as a movement seeking to strengthen India’s education systemwith thesimple act of private schools letting indisadvantaged children after school hours.
THE RESULTS
We garnered attention in important print and online media outlets, and reached education stakeholders and target audiences,including policy makers, K12 education community, NGOs, parents, students, and volunteers.All this was achieved duringthe national general elections, when ‘soft’ news wasnot newsworthy enough. The Open Door Project trended on Twitter for two weeks in a row.Numerous opinion leaders took to their social media handles to supportthe movement. In just a few weeks, leading NGOs joined hands with TOPD and many others showed interest. The Open Door Project became the most awarded campaign from India in 2019, winning some of the most prestigious global awards such as Cannes Gold (the only Gold for India that year), Clio, Spikes Asia, and LIA (London International Awards), among others.
YEAR
2012
Date
October 23, 2021