Archie Panjabi Appointed as Pratham Ambassador

August 25, 2011

Emmy Award Winning Actress to join hands with global effort to improve children’s education in India. 

Pratham USA today announced that Emmy-award winning Archie Panjabi will serve as an Ambassador to the organization, lending her voice and celebrity to its cause of educating India’s underprivileged children.   Her first formal appearance as Pratham Ambassador will be at the 2011 Pratham Gala in New York scheduled for October 5th at the Pierre Hotel.  Archie will host this year’s event that typically will raise upwards of $1.5 million and attracts a sold out crowd of prominent philanthropists and business people from the Tri-State area. 

Archie Panjabi currently stars as Kalinda Sharma on CBS’ critically acclaimed hit drama, The Good Wife.   Her big screen credits include domestic and international hits Bend It Like Beckham, Yasmin, The Constant Gardner, A Good Year and A Mighty Heart. 

As an Amabassador to Pratham, Archie will help create awareness in the United States and abroad about the 100 million undereducated youth in India today.  “The best way to shine the light on education in India is to continue to bring this incredibly important conversation to the global stage.  These children are our future and in turn, we are theirs,” Panjabi said.

Archie is looking forward to participating in Pratham programs in India this November and spending time with the Pratham staff, volunteers, and of course the children served by the organization. 

About Pratham: 

Pratham, which means "first" in Sanskrit, was founded in the slums of Mumbai in 1994 with UNICEF support.  Today, Pratham’s direct urban programs, including pre-schools, community libraries and remedial learning programs reach hundreds of thousands of children every year.  In 2007, with the support of the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation, Pratham launched the Read India campaign, an innovative, low-cost effort to reach the  ~100 million children in India who cannot read, write or do basic math.  With the continued support of the Hewlett Foundation in 2010, the Read India campaign has entered its second phase, focusing its attention at the village level and teaching more advanced learning skills. 

Pratham's Annual Status of Education Report (ASER) evaluates India's status of education through direct testing of over 700,000 children in 16,000 villages across India.  ASER is the only annual measurement of basic literacy and numeracy conducted at scale in India today and its widespread dissemination has helped focus government attention on the issue of learning. To support newly literate children across India, Pratham Books has developed and published over 130 titles and printed over 3 million children's books in local Indian languages.

Pratham's programs have been recognized internationally for their innovation and impact. Recently, Pratham received a 2011 Skoll Award for Social Entrpreneurship, the CNN-IBN Indian of the Year Award in the public service category and the 2010 Henry R. Kravis Leadership Prize.

With an annual budget of less than $15 million, Pratham combines large-scale impact with an extremely efficient use of funds.  Pratham USA (www.prathamusa.org), a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization with a four-star rating (the highest possible) from Charity Navigator, accepts tax deductible contributions from U.S. donors.