GOING DIGITAL-IIMAAAHCCT & RBL BANK RAISES RS. 5.12 CRORES FOR GIRL CHILD EDUCATION THROUGH UMEED 1000 CYCLOTHON
- The initiative has garnered funds over Rs. 16. 12 crores in the past seven years
- 2,71,127 kms were covered collectively by all the participants of the Cyclothon and Donate Miles to Educate, Charity Challenge
IIMAAAHCCT in association with RBL Bank hosted its 7th Edition of UMEED 1000 Cyclothon from 27th November to 11th December, 2020, a novel initiative to support girl child education. Started in 2014, UMEED 1000 Cyclothon has been making a big difference in the lives of marginalised communities and raising funds for the education of girl children. The trust took over their second school in 2019, in the slum community of Fatehnagar, Hyderabad. The school serves children of low income families with high quality education and nutritional support for their well-rounded development. The long term vision is to enable these children to break the cycle of poverty by providing access to excellent education, thereby making them propellers and change agents for the sustenance of the schools and the communities, they represent. Through these years, with the B support, around 1500 children are getting the direct benefits of education, of which over 1000 are girl children. The Trust plans to set up 10 Udbhav RBL Schools by 2030.
Ever since the COVID-19 lockdown, schools and learning centers have been shut with no clarity on when they would re-open. The IIMA Trust wanted to stand with the children of Udbhav School and help them continue their education despite the challenges. As its response, the IIMA Alumni of Hyderabad Chapter, Coromandel International & RBL Bank donated laptops and tablets to bring the school at-home as the learning solution, making it completely free for the school. With this, the students can learn and practice from the comfort of their homes.
The IIMAAAHCCT continues to monitor the situation and how it might affect the future of learning. Along with the other corporate who are working rigorously to build a blended model of learning to stay ahead of the curve.
‘UMEED 1000’ Cyclothon, the flagship CSR initiative of RBL Bank, a social endeavor to contribute and raise funds in support of girl child education concluded successfully, raising Rs. 5.12 crores. The proceeds of the initiative will be donated to Udbhav RBL School, in Fatehnagar, Hyderabad, a school adopted by the Bank in 2019 catering to underprivileged children.
The event this year was conducted in phases, starting off the first leg of the initiative, on October 2, 2020 with a charity challenge, ‘Donate Miles to Educate-Support Girl Child’. The challenge saw Alumni Friends & families walk, run and cycle to donate miles, which were monetized into funds. A collective distance of 1,61,036 Kms was contributed through this challenge. The miles donated was tracked through an App and the Bank matched the donation raised 1:1.
The Cyclothon was flagged off from the Lower Parel Branch of RBL Bank on November 27, 2020 and over a span of 14 days, 127 cyclists, including 52 RBL Bank employees, collectively contributed a distance of 1,10,091 Kms (as captured on the App).
Phase 1: A charity challenge by RBL Bank, ‘Donate Miles to Educate-Support Girl Child’ went on from October 2nd to November 15th, where employees of RBL Bank and their families walked, ran or cycled to donate miles and support girl child education. These miles were monetised by the scale of every 1km=Rs. 10. Moreover, on the festive occasion of Diwali, the scale was elevated with 5x rewards for the donated miles, so that every 1km=Rs. 50. So far, through the charity challenge the funds successfully raised till date by participants equal to the amount of Rs. 35 lakhs. The Bank has pledged to match the donation raised from this event 1:1 and fund the cause. Thus till date, Rs. 70 lakhs has been successfully raised for Udbhav RBL School after RBL Bank’s matching contribution. This figure is only set to continue rising as having received overwhelming response in participation, RBL Bank has now decided to re-open Donate Miles to Educate-Support Girl Child charity challenge from 27th November to 11th December, 2020 to continue alongside the Umeed1000 Cyclothon.
Phase 2: The Umeed 1000 Cyclothon qualifiers were scheduled on November 7th and 8th wherein the cyclists completed125 km over the LifeCykul app in two days in their respective cities to qualify for the final Cyclothon. A total of 127 participants qualified for this event, of which 56 are RBL Bank employees.
Phase 3: The UMEED 1000 Cyclothon 2020 will be flagged off from 27th of November 2020 and will go on for a span of 14 days till 11th December 2020. The selected participants will form teams and each participant will cover the 1,000 km target over the 14 days’ time period, to create and raise awareness as well as support Girl Child Education
RBL Bank is committed to supporting the education of girl children who display the true spirit of #MujheRokeNaKoi (No One Can Stop Me), which is also the theme of the Cyclothon.
- Muralidharan, Chairman Fundraising – Udbhav School, run by IIMAAAHC Trust said, “We are extremely happy that UMEED 1000 Cyclothon has evolved with time and is really making great strides despite the pandemic. The cyclothon this year is a very different, very unique model which has really taken the traditional Cyclothon model to a much higher level. The revised model & commitment of RBL bank to run the Cyclothon is a great benefit to the children of Udbhav RBL School, this will help us to scale to 10 schools as fast as possible’.
