Bharti

Bharti Foundation wins the ICICI ‘Inclusive India Award’

Award recognizes Bharti Foundation's contributions to inclusive growth by providing quality education to underprivileged children in rural India

New Delhi, August 24, 2012: Bharti Foundation, the philanthropic arm of Bharti Enterprises has won the ICICI Inclusive Award for 'Elementary Education' in the Corporate category. The award recognizes the Satya Bharti School Program, the flagship program of the Bharti Foundation for its ground-breaking work in the area of providing quality education to underprivileged children in rural India, with focus on girl child. Mr. Vijay Chadda, CEO, Bharti Foundation received the award on behalf of Bharti Foundation.

ICICI Foundation and CNBC-TV18's India Inclusive Awards acknowledge organisations and individuals who have been working tirelessly in the field of education, health, livelihood and access to finance for the mobilization of marginalized groups in the society. The Award were presented to 8 NGOs (one per sector and per category), 4 Corporate Bodies (one per sector) and 1 individual who made a lasting impact through his / her work in field of development.

On receiving the award, Mr. Vijay Chadda, CEO, Bharti Foundation, said, "The award is a tribute to the untiring efforts of the teachers and the team members of the Foundation that have helped Satya Bharti School program make a difference to the lives of over 38,000 children in rural India. We will continue with our efforts to provide quality education to underprivileged children and make them an equal stakeholder in India's growth story".

Bharti Foundation was set up in 2000 as the philanthropic arm of the Bharti Group of Companies to help bridge the education divide between urban and rural India by contributing towards the education sector. The Satya Bharti School Program was launched in 2006 to deliver free quality education to underprivileged children in the rural areas, focusing primarily on the girl child and children belonging to the minority communities. Currently, more than 38,000 children are enrolled in 254 Satya Bharti Schools (including 187 primary, 62 elementary and five senior secondary schools) across six Indian states. The aim of the program is to develop scalable, sustainable and replicable components of quality education to make a large scale impact on the education sector as a whole.

Bharti Foundation has received various other national and international acclaims for its social initiatives in the past. The recent ones among them have been the Economic Times Corporate Citizen of the Year Award 2010, the World Education Award for 'Best Public Choice Award for Innovative Practices in Education' at the World Education Summit 2011 and the Indian Education Awards 2011 in the category of 'Best NGO for Excellent Work in Elementary Education'. Some other awards which have been won by Bharti Foundation in the past include the Asian CSR Award for 'Support and Improvement of Education' in 2008, the Social and Corporate Governance Award 2009 for 'Best Practices in Corporate Social Responsibility', the Indian NGO Awards 2008 in the 'Regional Winner- Large (North)' category and the Golden Peacock Award for Corporate Social Responsibility in 2006.