Batelco Group Lends its Supports to 1Goal Global Initiative

Her Majesty Queen Rania of Jordan Announces ‘1GOAL: Education for All’ mobile campaign at the GSMA Mobile World Congress

The Batelco Group has announced that it is joining other leading mobile operators in the ‘1GOAL: EDUCATION FOR All’ initiative to support universal education – a legacy of the FIFA World Cup 2010

Her Majesty, Queen Rania Al Abdullah of Jordan who is Co-founder and Co-Chair of the 1GOAL initiative, announced the 1GOAL mobile campaign, the world’s largest cause-related campaign ever undertaken, at the GSMA Mobile World Congress which took place in Barcelona from 15th to 18th February.

1GOAL is an initiative to ensure that every child in the world has the opportunity to go to school by 2015. Today, 72 million children in the world are denied that chance, and do not have access to basic primary education.

Operators from across the mobile world, including the Batelco Group, have joined forces with global football stars, the football world and FIFA, along with educational champions, charities and campaigners  to support the mobile campaign, the world’s largest cause related campaign ever undertaken.

Operators serving more than 1 billion mobile users will deliver an international mobile communications campaign of unprecedented reach that combines the platform of the world’s biggest sporting occasion with the world’s largest medium, to harness public support for the effort.

Other mobile operators backing the campaign include: AT&T Wireless, Axiata Group Berhad, Bharti-Airtel, Hutchison 3 Group, KT, MTN, NTT DOCOMO, Orascom, SingTel Group, Smart Communications, SOFTBANK MOBILE, SK Telecom, VimpleCom and Zain Group, which together serve more than 1billion mobile users.

The campaign is providing the platform for millions of people globally, to show their support for 1GOAL. It launches on April 20th and runs up until the World Cup final in South Africa on 11th July.

“We are grateful for the GSMA ’s leadership and partnership in creating this campaign,” said Queen Rania.

“I want to thank each and every one of you here today who has joined the 1GOAL team and who ’ll reach out to subscribers with a message, an app, or a widget. 1GOAL is about people-power... the largest ever, never-before-done, cause-related campaign of its kind. And I hope that those of you in the mobile ecosystem who haven ’t done so, will join up and sign up before our kick-off in April,” Her Majesty added.

GSMA CEO Rob Conway said that the GSMA Board has recognised the role, responsibility and reach of mobile in harnessing global support for universal education, a critical part of the UN’s mission to eliminate world poverty.

“As a result, we are delighted to announce a collaborative campaign that is unprecedented in our industry, utilising the scale of the world’s largest medium to make a real difference to the future for millions of children in the world.”

World leaders are meeting during 2010 to discuss their ongoing commitments to education for all and the 1GOAL mobile campaign will enable tens of millions of people to let those leaders know that education for all can help end world poverty.

The mobile campaign – coordinated by the GSMA - will comprise a host of mobile communications tools, including mobile advertising, applications and messaging plus innovative football related content. The GSMA & 1GOAL will provide the marketing tools to operators and others that support the campaign. It will enable millions of people to sign up, via a host of mobile response mechanisms, demonstrating to global leaders and the UN that universal education is a universal demand