Illiteracy Will Be a Thing of the Past and Here's Why

It’s been 70 years since India woke up to life and freedom. But I believe that our journey towards freedom has only just begun. A lot of our country’s struggles get overlooked by bigger, more seemingly significant troubles.

Problems that stem from a fundamental social injustice towards people from a lower economic status tend to get pushed in the background.

Looking at these situations we asked ourselves – Are we really free? The answer was NO.

We then asked ourselves what’s holding us back from achieving true freedom, and we found our answer in the words of George Washington:

"Education is the key to unlock the golden doors of freedom''

India is home to 287 million illiterate people, which is approximately 37% of the world’s population. The need of the hour was to start a conversation towards eradicating this issue from our nation’s story.

Thus, we mapped out a way to play a part in our nation’s success story. And what better way to do it than by creating awareness amongst our huge social media family.

Freedom from Illiteracy Campaign:

With the #FreedomFromIlliteracy campaign, our objective was to create awareness across platforms where the reaction was quick and compelling.

We’ve always been digitally inclined, and we realize the power of social media behind creating a buzz and starting a new conversation.

We targeted young people who could help create awareness and willingly interact with us to do their part towards this cause. And in that regard, social media platforms have been revolutionary.

Throughout the years we have witnessed it play a key role in spreading awareness. Be it protests, awareness or sharing your opinion on a cause, social media has always gained public attention in great numbers.

Reaching Masses:

We wanted to take our content to people wherever they are – be it at home, while travelling, at work, etc. We wanted to create the maximum impact within the limited time frame and knew that social media would be the best option for this.

Our social media pages have a good amount of following and we really wanted to leverage that towards a worthy cause.

Social media platforms allow us to see how our audience reacts to the content we put out and comment with their views on the topic. We then observe and interact with them in a way that isn’t possible with other mediums.

Engagement on Social Media:

Our plan revolved around a very typical digital behaviour of “Liking” something, and we wanted to monetize that for a worthy cause.

While most brands take a passive approach that gets over when their audience engages with their Independence Day-related posts, our entire campaign is tied back to providing tangible benefits.

For every engagement in the form of a ‘like’, ‘share’ and/or ‘comment’ on our #FreedomFromIlliteracy posts across Facebook, Twitter and Instagram, IndiaFirst Life will contribute Re 1 to an NGO fighting to educate those who don’t get a chance due to monetary or other reasons.

This social cause helps the underprivileged and at the same time generates a good amount of awareness about an issue that was on the verge of being overshadowed by other problems.

As a company, it was important that even before we talk about financial inclusion, we ensure that the children of our country don’t get denied a basic education.

We want every child in this country to grow up to be an adult who is self-sufficient and thereby in turn contributes in a positive way to building our beautiful country – and what better way to start than by giving them an education.