CRY's latest campaign focuses on the importance of girls completing their secondary education and its direct correlation to the country's growth

• CRY's campaign is aimed at building awareness on the importance of India’s girls completing their secondary education and the positive correlation it can have on the inclusive socio-economic growth of the country.
• The campaign has been launched in collaboration with Lintas Live.
• The campaign idea is rooted in the hard data from a recent McKinsey Gender Parity Study (2018) that clearly states that employment of girl child can add $770 billion to India’s GDP.

CRY (Child Rights and You) launched a national campaign titled #PooriPadhaiDeshKiBhalai to build awareness on the importance of India’s girls completing their secondary education and the positive correlation it can have on the inclusive socio-economic growth of the country. The campaign has been launched in collaboration with Lintas Live and seeks to inspire India’s citizens to come together and pledge their support for the cause.

As a part of this film, Lintas Live partnered with Absolute Productions to deliver this heartwarming film, set against the backdrop of rural heartland of the country, where the protagonist – a young girl – innocently leads a potential investor to hark upon the real investment potential of the country. The ‘Big Impact’ of investing in the idea of supporting every girl to complete her secondary education is validated by stark statistics recounted by an educationist who enumerates the long-term economic benefits that this could bring to the country.


Speaking about the campaign, Sarvesh Raikar, Creative Head, Lintas Live said, “Several films and PSAs around education, especially on girl-child education, have been done before. Our challenge was how do we make our message stand out? How do we shine a spotlight on the importance of completing secondary education? Which is why, we took the route of showing it as an investment and actually demonstrate the returns - with hard-hitting numbers. The fact that the campaign has been launched in March further made the theme sharper – as that's when investments are top of the mind for the country."

Commenting on the initiative, Puja Marwaha, CEO, CRY said, “In the four decade-long journey of CRY, ensuring education for the girl-child – especially the ones living in remotest of places and within marginalised communities – has always been very close to our heart and at the top of our programme agenda on the ground.”

“We do hope that the campaign #PooriPadhaiDeshKiBhalai, and the way the film captures the essence of the core issue of girl-child education with an imaginative articulation, will be able to mirror the largeness of our mission and purpose. The campaign intends to bring to light the importance of secondary education for the girls and table the positive potential that such investment will bring to the country’s socio-economic growth. We urge people from all walks of life to come forward, take note and support the cause,” Puja added.

Speaking about the campaign, Ameer Ismail, President, Lintas Live said, “We are truly honoured to partner with CRY for promoting a true cause that impact lives and I am so proud of the team that has worked on this with passion. This campaign is a true reflection of our creative capabilities at Lintas Live with digital – first amplifications at the very heart of its execution.”

The storytelling is simple, easy and straight from the heart, as the film aims to narrate one of the starkest socio-economic realities of the country. Keeping in mind the fact that around 38 per cent of girls in India, between 15 to 18 years, are out of school (RGI Census 2016 & UDISE data 2016-17) and that the drop-out rates for girls increase dramatically from 4.30 per cent in primary schools to 17.01 per cent in secondary school (UDISE 2018-19), the film looks at secondary education of girls as the most potent of investments towards a brighter future and a robust economy.

The campaign idea is rooted in the hard data from a recent McKinsey Gender Parity Study (2018) that clearly states that employment of girl child can add $770 billion to India’s GDP. The film concludes with a plea to invest in the future of the nation by investing in the secondary education of the girl child and help harness the economic strength of the nation’s latent potential.