MUMBAI: TNS has announced its commitment to raise $387,000 by the end of 2007 to fund a pre-school educational project in Cambodia, supported by Unicef, the United Nation's Children's Fund.
The TNS fundraising initiative, entitled 'Imagine...' has seen TNS pledge $50,000 to date, with a further $80,000 promised by the end of 2005, $132,000 in 2006 and $125,000 in 2007, to be raised globally with the support of TNS employees.
The fundraising initiatives will kick off with 'Walk to Work' day on 9 September, where 15 TNS offices around the world, including London, San Francisco, Barcelona and Kuala Lumpur, will be raising money by walking into work, in recognition of the hardships that many Cambodian school children face in travelling to school.
TNS began it's support for Unicef when they made an initial donation of $250,000 to Unicef at the beginning of 2005, $200,000 of which was sent immediately and has been used for education and child protection projects in the tsunami-affected regions of Sri Lanka and Indonesia. At the time, the group also indicated its interest in supporting a longer-term development project with Unicef and $50,000 was set aside to start this up.
The Preschool Education Project in Cambodia aims to expand access to pre-schools for 14,500 children aged 3-5 years and reduce dropout and repetition rates. According to recent research, 14 per cent of children in Cambodia drop out of school in their first year and only 50 per cent complete their primary school education. Studies have proved that by introducing children to education through preschools they are prepared for the challenges that full time education brings. TNS will support Unicef's work in six provinces to build 120 new community preschool shelters and train approximately 950 community preschool teachers on child development and child centred teaching.
TNS chief executive officer Mike Kirkham said, "We operate in 70 countries and were keen to partner with a global charitable organisation, so that our employees around the world could identify with the project and raise funds to support it. We believe that these preschools will make a real difference to the lives of those children who attend them."
"Our partnership with Unicef will also make a real difference to TNS by giving our employees the opportunity to be involved in such a worthwhile international fundraising initiative. The widespread positive response to the announcement of our relationship with Unicef indicates how proud our staff feel about TNS' participation in this fundraising work," he added.
