Today is Blog Action Day and I thought I would write about an advertising campaign that has some relevance to the issue of poverty. In India, eradicating poverty has been a slogan since the ’70s. Garibi Hatao (eradicate poverty) has unfortunately remained a slogan. Us Indians come face to face with poverty almost every day. In cities like Mumbai, slums thrive cheek by jowl with the most expensive property on earth. It is common to see poorest of the poor in our every day lives and we have all become immune to the sight.
While a lot of it related to complex national issues – quality of education, the state of politics, population control – I strongly feel that ‘educating the girl child’ is one game changer of a step. It has the potential to keep so many children off the streets and make us all hope for a better tomorrow. Instead of living on hope, the recent Teach India initiative (many see it as a marketing gimmick) from the Times of India gives a chance for the educated lot to stop whining and start acting. Their recent campaign dramatizes the potential of this idea.
Rest of the ads are here.
On this day, let us pledge to make a small contribution towards eradicating poverty by taking some action.
2 Comments
People feel overwhelmed by the problems of poverty and don’t realise that every small action leads to a greater good. Our website, http://www.GiveIndia.org offers people the chance to do a small act of kindness to a cause of their choice in a transparent way. People who give through our site receive a feedback report of how they helped.
interesting campaign that. i hope it bears fruit.
for my part, i turn to sites like freerice, kiva, and goodsearch, as ways to help alleviate poverty online.
saw this post via the front page of blog action day. it’s great that you’re participating. 🙂