TCF, Lipton to create awareness about child education

KARACHI: Shazia Syed, chairperson and CEO of Unilever Pakistan and Ateed Riaz, co-founder and chairman of The Citizen’s Foundation (TCF), signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) at the TCF School in Qayyumabad, a statement said on Friday.

The signing served as the first step towards Lipton and TCF’s aim at taking action against child labour by creating awareness regarding the importance of child education.

The event was opened by Asma Yusuf, sustainability lead for Unilever, who gave an overview of Lipton’s programme; followed by a short recitation of the Holy Quran by a TCF student, it said.

Syed addressed the audience about the newly formed partnership, highlighting that Lipton has adopted 10 TCF schools in Pakistan, it added.

She emphasised the importance of education in a gradually progressing nation such as Pakistan.

“With this initiative, Lipton wants to be awake to what really matters – 20 to 25 million kids in Pakistan are out of school. That's a big figure, the second worst in the world and Lipton believes that we, as a society, need to unite and help these children fight for a better, brighter future,” the statement said. Keeping into consideration the need to educate as many children as possible through this partnership, Lipton has adopted 10 TCF schools and calls upon all Pakistanis to contribute towards this cause and improve educational facilities for kids across the country.

Well-reputed Ateed Riaz delivered a few words to the audience and laid great emphasis on the quality of education in Pakistan, which is needed to minimise child labour. “We need to accept the sad reality that child labour is a serious problem within our country. Unfortunately, it is increasing day-by-day and not enough citizens seem to be taking action for the unprivileged children who aspire to seek education,” he said

“This is why TCF and Lipton have joined hands to school as many children as possible. I believe this small step can eventually make a big difference.”

Mushtaq Chhapra emphasised that if the youth is educated, all social problems will automatically be lessened from Pakistan. “Education is in all entirety the key to lessen poverty, illiteracy and other caste issues. Hence, this partnership is very valuable to us.”

“Lipton is the first brand to reduce the gap between the corporate and social sectors and this is why I would like to thank Unilever for joining hands with us to eradicate child labour and educate as many children as possible,” he added. “I hope our actions in 2018 manage to create more awareness and bring us closer to our goal.”

After the speeches, the visual representation of Lipton and TCF’s partnership was unveiled. This was a map of Pakistan, where the TCF schools were marked and the 10 schools adopted by Lipton were highlighted in yellow. The map served as an impactful symbol of Lipton’s first step into this partnership, displaying the brand’s aim to be able to add more yellow marks to the school map, in the near future.

Towards the end, a question and answer session was conducted where both Shazia Syed, Mushtaq Chhapra and Ateed Riaz answered the media representatives’ queries. Through their answers, it was quite apparent that both Lipton and TCF see this partnership as a viable one, with its core purpose being to ensure an easier access to education by enrolling as many children as possible in the nearest TCF schools.