Jyoti Yadav, Student From Bharti Foundation's Satya Bharti School Wins Gold Medal And Trip To USA For Her Campaign For Widows

Online, April 9, 2012 (Newswire.com) - Jyoti Yadav, a student of Class VII from the Satya Bharti Government Upper Primary School, Dabadwas, Alwar, Rajasthan was rewarded as one of the top two 'national honoree(s)' at the '2012 Pramerica Spirit of Community Awards'. Rewarded with a gold medal, Rs 50000 in cash and all-expense paid return trip to Washington, D.C. in May 2012 to represent India in the felicitation events for Spirit honorees from all participating countries, Jyoti received the award from Prof. Yash Pal, Chancellor, Jawahar Lal Nehru University, New Delhi in the presence of Mr. Pawan Dhamija, MD & CEO, DLF Pramerica, Mr. Rakesh Jinsi, National Director & Secretary General, SOS Children's Villages Of India and Ms. Amita Puri, CEO, Charities Aid Foundation and many more distinguished guests who joined to cheer the change agents of tomorrow.

Jyoti Yadav's campaign - Respect for Widows in Society- focused on the empowerment of widows in her village -. Struck by the humiliation faced by her mother after the death of her father, Jyoti decided to raise this issue with the Gram Panchayat and ensure respect and employability for widowed women in their village. Competing alongside 3000+ entries from school children, primarily from urban schools, across the country, Jyoti's campaign was shortlisted under the top 15 finalists, from where she was then selected as one of the two national honorees from India. Speaking about her win, Jyoti said "I am very happy that I have won this award. This campaign is very special to me as I wanted to change the way people treated my mother and other such women in our village."

The Satya Bharti School Program is the flagship rural education initiative of Bharti Foundation, the philanthropic arm of the Bharti Group of Companies. Launched in 2006, the Satya Bharti Schools is one of the largest end-to-end rural quality education initiatives in the country and
aims to deliver free quality education to underprivileged children in the rural pockets, focusing primarily on the girl child and children belonging to the minority communities. The program aims at holistic development of children, helping them grow into confident, employable and socially responsible citizens. Currently, more than 33,000 children are enrolled in 253 Satya Bharti Schools across six Indian states. The intent of the program is to develop scalable, sustainable and replicable components of quality education to make a large scale impact on the education sector as a whole.

Students from Satya Bharti Schools have also won awards in the DLF Pramerica Spirit of Community Awards previously. Kiran Bai, student of Satya Bharti Government Upper Primary School, Fatehpura, was given a Special Recognition Award for her campaign "Bal Vivah- Against Child Marriage" at the DLF Pramerica Spirit of Community Awards 2011. Students of Satya Bharti Schools have also won awards at the Design for Change School Contest in 2011, 2010 and 2009. Additionally, Bharti Foundation, as an organization has also received various national and international acclaims for its social initiatives in the past. The recent ones among them have been the Global CSR Award for Corporate Social Responsibility - Education, Award for 'Best NGO For Excellence in Education Sector' at Concern 2012, the World Education Award for 'Best Public Choice Award for Innovative Practices in Education' at the World Education Summit 2011, Indian Education Awards 2011 in the category of 'Best NGO for Excellent Work in Elementary Education' and the, Economic Times Corporate Citizen of the Year Award 2010.
The Pramerica Spirit of Community Awards, acknowledges the efforts of school children currently engaged in voluntary community service and hold them up as role models for all young Indians. The program is an extension of the Prudential Spirit of Community Awards, the largest youth recognition program in the U.S. based exclusively on volunteer service. In India, this community service recognition program for school students was introduced last year and more than 550 students from across the country participated in this initiative last year