MUMBAI: Lenovo India announced today that its ‘Girls With Goals’ campaign has entered its second phase – fundraising on ground to build a school in Hutup, a Jharkhand village riddled with child marriage and violence against women.
The campaign started with the story of young tribal girls from Jharkhand who shamed failure and social injustice as they marched proudly to Spain to compete in the Donosti Cup, an international football tournament. These “girls with goals” backed by YUWA, a not for profit organization that uses sports as a tool for empowerment, may not have won the competition against some of the world’s toughest youth football teams in the world, but their remarkable story has the world rallying behind them.
Earlier this month, Lenovo partnered with the YUWA foundation yet again to document the inspiring story of the YUWA team from Hutup, Jharkhand. The objective of the campaign was to raise awareness about YUWA and eventually drive corporate sponsorship and community support to build a new school in Hutup. The real-time, unscripted web series, shot in Hutup, Mumbai, and Spain, captured the real life experiences and unbreakable spirit of the girls. Naturally, it touched the hearts of many and quickly gained immense traction across various social media platforms, scoring over 5 million views, over 14 million reach, and over 11,000 shares, and even a Twitter trending topic under its belt. Another significant part of the campaign was a social media hashtag #KickForABrick, an idea that invited the community to add bricks to YUWA’s new school in Hutup. The social media community was asked to kick a ball and share it on social media and then nominate their friends to build a chain. Lenovo also roped in Bollywood superstar Ranbir Kapoor and ace footballer Sunil Chhetri to urge the community to contribute. The initiative garnered massive eyeballs on Twitter and other social platforms and a total of 400 videos have been submitted so far.
Now that the community has come together to raise awareness about the YUWA girls, it is time to raise funds on ground for the school. Lenovo is running a long-term fundraising campaign on Ketto. Inspired by the YUWA story, the campaign is seeing independent third parties and individuals join the effort with their own Ketto pages. Together, they have garnered 42 backers and counting for the fundraising initiative. The coming days will see Lenovo invite women corporate leaders and industry stalwarts to contribute to the cause through personalized messages and a printed storybook highlighting YUWA’s work in social development.
Speaking about the campaign, Bhaskar Choudhuri, Director – Marketing, Lenovo India said, “The YUWA girls truly embody the spirit of the Lenovo brand of relentlessly moving forward, undaunted by failure. Our partnership with YUWA goes beyond the successful awareness campaign. We are aiming for sustainable, on-ground impact and we are urging the business community to come together and root for the YUWA School. Engaging business leaders is the natural next step – and we strongly believe that the awareness campaign has set us up for success on that front too. I attribute our own enthusiasm to the invincible spirit of the YUWA team that just returned from Spain. Onward and upwards!”
Franz Gastler, the founder and brains behind YUWA’s inspiring work, said “Sports is a great tool for awareness and empowerment but we can’t lose sight of fundamentals like education. Involved partnerships like the one we have with Lenovo ensure that we go beyond what grabs eyeballs, to make real impact. I thank them for their partnership.”
Catch all the campaign updates here:
Website: www.girlswithgoals.in
Twitter: @Lenovo_in
Facebook page: Lenovo India
Be part of the conversation: #GirlsWithGoals; #KickForABrick
