Burger King India partners with Room to Read India for Girl Education Program

Impacts several hundreds of girls enrolled in the Girl Education Program across India

27^th September 2016: Burger King India partners with Room to Read‘Girl Education Program’ in India; supports girls in underserved communities with the resources they need to stay in school. Room to Read’s Girls Education Programme focuses on supporting girls to overcome these challenges during their transitions into and through secondary school, because that is where the biggest and most permanent gaps in gender equality in education take place. This partnership will benefit girls studying in Government secondary schools across Andhra Pradesh, Chhattisgarh, Delhi, Rajasthan, Telangana, and Uttarkhand through a multi-faceted intervention that includes: life skills education, mentorship, material support, and family and community engagement that helps girls to succeed in the secondary education. 

Burger King India campaign would directly support these girls to complete one year schooling along with key decision making skills that would enable them to stay at school and prepare them towards tertiary education and carrier opportunities. The Room to Read Girl Education Program has benefited more than 8400 Girls across 7 states in India (Andhra Pradesh, Chhattisgarh, Delhi, Rajasthan, Telangana, Madhya Pradesh and Uttarakhand.   Donation raised through this campaign will support the cost of one year schooling. Funds for the program will be raised through individual donations.

Customers can donate at any of the 62 Burger King restaurants across India or online through: http://www.roomtoread.org/DonateIndia.   All donations are tax exempt under Section 80(G) of the Income Tax Act (1961).

Speaking on the partnership Mr Rajeev Varman, CEO Burger King India commented “Burger King India is committed to this cause across the world and in India. It’s not just about helping girls graduate to next grade, but also develop life skills”. He further added “In addition to material & academic support and mentorship, the program focuses on life skill education activities which include workshops, camps and extracurricular activities focused on self-awareness, interpersonal skills, decision-making, creative thinking, and coping with emotions.”

This initiative is a part of the ROOM TO READ – BURGER KING MCLAMORE FOUNDATION Partnership; a global initiative that supports the Room to Read's Literacy Program. Through donations from generous BURGER KING® employees, franchises and restaurant guests in select areas in Europe, Asia and Africa, as well as donations directly from the BURGER KING McLAMORE℠ Foundation, the BURGER KING® system today supports more than 69,000 students through Room to Read's Literacy Program in Cambodia, India, Nepal, Sri Lanka, South Africa, Tanzania and Zambia. The foundation supports 33 schools across 5 states in India(Rajasthan, Chhattisgarh, Delhi, Mumbai and Telangana

Speaking on the partnership, Mr. Deepak Dogra, Director Operations, Room to Read India Trust said “At Room to Read we believe World Change Starts with Educated Children. In partnering with Burger King, Room to Read is able to reach out with its mission to millions of Burger King customers every day. This campaign helps us create a measurable lifelong change in the lives of children and girls at the grass-root level. I am sure this partnership will further the impact and scale of our programs and create best practices that sustain the change we make with this contribution”