Bvlgari Jewellery Business Unit Managing Director Mauro Di Roberto visits an educational programme from Bvlgari and Save the Children in Limpopo, South Africa, on the occasion of the 10th anniversary of the partnership.
2019 records a remarkable joint anniversary: 100 years since Save the Children’s foundation and 10 years since the launch of the challenging partnership with Bvlgari. To celebrate such a memorable milestone, in May 2019 Bvlgari will launch a new pendant enriching the custom-made jewellery collection dedicated to Save the Children. This is an opportunity for the Roman Maison to set the bold and ambitious target to reach within a year $100M of overall donations to Save the Children, the international Organization committed since 1919 to give children a healthy start, the opportunity to learn and protection from harm.
To observe first-hand the results and the impact of this partnership in one of the areas where it operates, Mauro Di Roberto, Bvlgari’s Jewellery Business Unit Managing Director, has field visited a project site in Limpopo, South Africa, which is supported by Save the Children thanks to the funds raised by Bvlgari for their shared cause.
“EDUCATION IS WEALTH”: BVLGARI AND SAVE THE CHILDREN SUPPORTING EARLY LEARNING OPPORTUNITIES IN LIMPOPO.
Poverty is a significant barrier to education in South Africa and one of the major challenges the country is facing regards quality and access to early learning opportunities from 3 to 8 years, which are unequal across income levels, especially in the most marginalized and rural areas such as Limpopo province.
Reaching for the goal of a universal primary education reducing the gap in terms of the children’s future opportunities, Bvlgari and Save the Children launched the “Thuto Ke Lefa” – “Education is wealth” project, with the objective to enhance the quality of learning outcomes in Literacy and Mathematics in early and primary basic education cycles for thousands of 3-8 years old children from the Limpopo province. By investing on a focused capacity building for educators and teachers, and actively engaging children’s parents or caregivers, local community leaders and institutions managers, the project has contributed to improve local education system’s performance, facilitating, at the same time, the medium-to-long term sustainability of the positive impact for the children at present and near future.
To meet some of children beneficiaries and their families in person and see for himself what the Organisation is doing for them, Bvlgari’s Jewellery Business Unit Managing Director Mauro Di Roberto travelled to the area and visited the project in Polokwane Municipaly, Limpopo’s capital town. Raising once more the bar for Bvlgari’s and Save the Children’s shared commitment, on his field visit he announced the launch of a new pendant to help reaching the new ambitious goal to round Bvlgari’s overall donation to Save the Children to $100M within a year: “2019 is an important year. The 100th anniversary of Save the Children and the 10th anniversary of the partnership between Bvlgari and Save the Children. To celebrate this important moment Bvlgari will launch in May a new Bvlgari Bvlgari pendant, which will help us to achieve the ambitious goal of 100 million dollars by the end of the year. We are every day more and more proud of this partnership and certain that we can do more and more for many children in the world, the future of humanity.”
One of the project’s key purposes was to establish Reading Camps – enjoyable, safe places where hundreds of children 6 to 8 years old had the chance to interact with literacy and numeracy in both entertaining and educational way. This initiative proved a huge success within children as it was held outside formal classroom settings, encouraging them to see literacy and numeracy as fun and engaging activities that are useful in all life situations, not just for school. On his field visit, Mauro Di Roberto participated to one of the Reading Camp sessions: “What impressed me most about this visit to South Africa is above all the incredible energy and empathy of children. The spontaneity with which they related to all of us. Beyond that it is incredible the quality of the work done by Save the Children operators, but above all the passion with which they dedicate their time and their life to these children and to the whole community. Something that made me even more proud to work for Bvlgari and together with Save the Children contribute to give so much support to these projects.”
10 YEARS OF PARTNERSHIP: TOGETHER TO CHANGE THE FUTURE
Since the beginning of this unique partnership with Save the Children in 2009, Bvlgari has raised almost $90M (€80M) so far through the sales of the Save the Children jewellery collection. Starting in May, the custom-designed collection will be enriched by a new pendant with the objective to furtherly boost one of the largest Cause Related Marketing donations ever in the luxury segment.
“Thanks to Bvlgari’s support, in 10 years we have been able to reach more than 2,1 million beneficiaries, of which 1,5 million at-risk children and youth, through 114 projects designed to deliver quality education, emergency relief, poverty reduction and youth empowerment programs for the most vulnerable communities overwhelmed by poverty, conflicts, violence or natural disasters. We do welcome Bvlgari’s new commitment on donations announced in occasion of this field visit which will enable Save the Children to reach more children with new projects, and further improve sustainability of those in place” said Daniela Fatarella, Deputy CEO Save the Children Italy who joined Mauro Di Roberto’s field visit in South Africa.
SHARE THIS ARTICLE