International Literacy Day: EBM’s mission to bring equity through education

The largest FMCG company in Pakistan has been on a mission since its inception in 1966. EBM is committed to nourishing lives, hearts, and communities through social development initiatives, including advancing educational standards, providing inclusive nourishment, enabling livelihoods, and protecting the environment.

The company has taken various initiatives to improve the educational infrastructure of Pakistan and enable access to education for girls in rural areas.

While EBM has been on this mission for decades, in the last 5 years these efforts to raise the literacy levels in the country have been consolidated under the Nourish for Equity pillar. Equity is different from equality.

Equality means each individual or group of people is given the same resources or opportunities. Equity recognizes that each person has different circumstances and allocates the exact resources and opportunities needed to reach an equal outcome.

In recent years the first awareness campaign for Nourishing equity, called Reading the Rights, ended with the words, “by educating children we can create a more equitable society”.

The current statistic of 1 out of every 4 children not being able to read tells us that this is a national emergency. Reading the rights campaign was launched on International Women’s Day and was followed by an eye-opening media activation of little schoolgirls reading news on national TV.

This campaign brought significant global attention to EBM’s mission to educate girls, as it won multiple international awards. EBM then picked on another important topic in Teachers of Tomorrow.

Around 70% of teachers in Pakistan’s primary and secondary education are female. According to the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO), Pakistan needs to increase the growth rate of primary school teachers by 50% to achieve the goal of universal primary education by 2030. This was followed by a campaign on questioning the unconscious gender bias hidden within language which shapes our beliefs and creates further inequalities in society.

Along with awareness campaigns, EBM works on the ground with credible education partners and has so far impacted 35,000 children and aims to reach 100,000 children by 2030.

EBM set up two school campuses named after Rashda Khawar Butt in Alamabad, Swabi, in collaboration with the Pakistan Air Force (PAF) and Rashid Memorial Welfare Organization project (RMWO).

These two campuses cater to students from pre-primary to secondary levels. In addition, EBM supports the Green Crescent Trust’s network of schools in both Karachi and rural Sindh, with over 160+ remote locations, and approximately 29,000 students.

Additionally, EBM contributes to adoption of The Citizen Foundation (TCF) schools and the Adult Literacy Programme, referred to as TCF Agahi, which aims to impart basic literacy and numeracy skills to family members of TCF students, particularly mothers.

Furthermore, another partner in the mission to increase literacy rates is the Development in Literacy (DIL), a non-profit organization committed to bringing positive transformations through education across Pakistan.

DIL has 169 schools that provide beacons of hope for 59,000 children, their families and communities. EBM recently installed solar panels in five DIL schools in Khairpur, Sindh, along with other contributions.

EBM’s latest campaign launched on 14th August brought to light a different perspective on National pride that 1 out of 4 children cannot read the national anthem. This campaign led many to understand the pain of being denied the fundamental right to education.

When children can read, they know their rights, they go on to educate others, they ask important questions and when children can read, they understand national pride. There is no future without education, there is no prosperity without equity. Until every child can read, EBM will continue this mission.

Copyright Business Recorder, 2024