The Great Wall of Education
Issue 16 | September 2010
Agency
Proximity India
Creative Team
Avinash Bajaj, Varun Goswami, Joy Sen Gupta, Sandipan Bhattacharyya, Manoi Deb, Josy Paul
Production Team
Gurdev Singh, Manoj Yogi, CPM India
Other Credits
Ajai Jhala, Renilson Joseph, Shruti Narang, Kanika Lala
Date
2010
Background
The brief was to help educate street children through the Aviva Street to School Program.
The strategy: everyone has old books they never look at. They could put those old books to good use, helping give a street kid an education.
Idea
Aviva's platform in India is 'Education is Insurance' and its Street to School Program supports this premise.
Inviting contributions to help build a wall of books was inviting people to help create a symbol of hope and future for street children.
The people of Delhi were asked not for their money but for just one old book. The books would then be distributed to NGOs to be used in primary education classes for street children. It was hoped that around 50,000 people might donate a book.
Results
The Great Wall of Education turned out to be the largest book wall ever made. After five days, it stood tall with over 130,000 books donated by over 100,000 Indians. These helped educate over 170,000 underprivileged children.
The activity generated PR worth over 15 million Rupees with articles, TV news coverage, blogs, tweets and Facebook groups. The Ministry of Education, acknowledged Aviva's work and the Education Minister visited the site himself to offer tsupport for future endeavours.
Our Thoughts
I think the installation as an advertising form has emerged straight out of art. It was Christo who first started putting curtains around buildings, wrapping them, and creating theatre out of the interaction people had with his creations. In the UK, Rachel Whiteread’s installations have created a sense of wonder and mystery in those who come across them. The Wall of Books, I think, has some of the same basic interactivity. In giving a book you would have become a collaborator. And in going to see the wall, how long would you have spent browsing through the titles, wondering who gave that book away and why? I would have been there an age! And that’s the point about installations. You become a part of them and that’s what makes them work.