BIC's buy a pen donate a pen continues in 2018

#Power their Potential

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BIC® donates to NGO and helps kids “Powers their Potential through the Back to School ‘Buy a pen, Donate a pen’ campaign

Millions of excited young South Africans will start their new school year this week with big hopes and dreams of a bright future. And, for the disadvantaged among them pens and Stationery items will be provided through the BIC® Buy a Pen, Donate a Pen programme, which is currently in full swing as part of BIC’s® Back to School campaign.

Parents play a key role in preparing their children for the start of the school year, and that includes ensuring they have the relevant and essential tools to be able to do their work. For many parents however, buying the necessary equipment is beyond their means, and that is where BIC® has stepped in for the last 7 years, and they will do so again in 2018.

Since 2011 the Buy a Pen, Donate a Pen programme has distributed 7.3 million pens.

Most of the Stationery is handed out to primary schools, for use in the foundation stage of learning, a critical time in terms of growth, cognitive, social, emotional and physical development.

The first nine years of children’s lives are the most formative and critical in their growth, so it is a tragedy that many children from impoverished backgrounds are missing it because they do not have access to the materials that are necessary for the correct learning to take place. BIC® has recognised this need and its Buy a Pen, Donate a Pen programme, was started in 2011, to assist in addressing this.

In 2017 one of the schools that benefitted from the programme was Eclah Educational Centre based in Newtown, Johannesburg. The 100 children at the centre’s pre-school come from disadvantaged families in Soweto, Newtown and Fordsburg. The majority of the parents don’t work and they rely on child grants to survive. 

Eclah received Stationery items from BIC®, including pens, pencils and colouring products. School principal, Edith Monareng, says the Stationery makes a huge difference to the school as they are able to run activities with the kids that they were not able to do in the past. “We can teach them drawing, colouring, painting and creative design,” she said. “These are activities that are key to unlocking their potential, and BIC® is powering their potential by enabling the educators to teach the kids with the correct tools.”

Brainwave, a non-profit organisation specialising in advising educators, has received more than

700 000 pens over the past few years from the programme. Brainwave helps educators to become child developers and not just caregivers, educating kids in English and Maths and motivating them to reach their full potential and find their rightful place in the workplace. The organisation has been operating for the past 8 years and works exclusively in the rural areas, at schools that typically have no electricity, no proper toilets, in all nine provinces of South Africa. Lanette Hatting, an educational psychologist working with qualified teachers at Brainwave, said they can never have enough pens and other Stationery, so BIC’s® Buy a Pen, Donate a Pen programme, is crucial to them. “Not having pens it is like having your hands cut off,” she said. “Nothing can be done without them. They are the key to success.” 

Ronette Kishun, BIC® Marketing Manager (Stationery), says they are proud to play a role in the improvement of education in South Africa. “Through the BIC® Buy a Pen, Donate a Pen programme, all South Africans, by purchasing a product marked with a sticker, can play a part in helping millions of kids in the rural and urban areas powering their potential,” she says.

“The campaign is continuing in 2018 and we are pleased to be able to support kids at the critical formative stage by giving Stationery to tap into and stimulate the potential that exists in each one of them and adequately prepares them for a bright future. Every year we give away over 1 million Stationery products and we are looking forward to handing over Stationery to schools like Echla and Brainwave, who works in over 200 schools each year.”