Ikea concludes Soft Toys for Education campaign

Ikea, Unicef and Qatar Charity officials with some of the children who received the soft toys at the conclusion of the campaign in Qatar.

Ikea Qatar has announced the conclusion of its annual Soft Toys for Education campaign which began in November 2014 in association with Qatar Charity and Unicef.Over 1,000 children were gifted Ikea soft toys collected through the campaign at a ceremony last week. Designed to improve lives of underprivileged children, this campaign was activated in the Ikea store at Doha Festival City. Between November 6 last year and January 3 this year, for every soft toy sold at Ikea stores worldwide, Ikea Foundation donated €1 to Unicef. This donation was utilised within Unicef’s many education programmes globally. As a local ‘give twice’ initiative, Ikea Qatar customers were also encouraged to donate the Ikea soft toys within designated collection boxes located in the store. The campaign successfully collected over 1,000 soft toys which were handed out by Qatar Charity to orphan children, children with special needs and young students supported by the organisation across Qatar. In the past, funds raised for Unicef by this campaign have supported global efforts including improving school infrastructure, access to water and sanitation facilities, training teachers, and providing school benches, desks and educational supplies like books, pencils and writing pads for children and teachers.John Kersten, managing director, Ikea Qatar, UAE, Egypt and Oman, said: “Ikea has run The Soft Toys for Education campaign since 2003, adding even more effort with every passing year. This year, we extended our long standing partnership with Unicef and continued our second year of collaboration with Qatar Charity. We are proud to have reached many children around the world together with children in need specifically within Qatar.” For more than 10 years, the Ikea Foundation has been a key partner and supporter in spreading education alongside Unicef and Save the Children.Dr Ibrahim El-Ziq, Gulf area representative, Unicef said: “The commitment and hard work of the partnership between Ikea and Unicef is a testimony to the fact that we believe this to be a long standing relationship. Our work towards improving the conditions for education of children worldwide cannot be done in a year or through a single programme.”Within Qatar, 2014 was the second year of the partnership between Qatar Charity and Ikea. Ibrahim bin Abdullah al-Mohannadi, executive director for local development, Qatar Charity said: “We are happy to have formed a partnership with Ikea and to work together to address needs of children in our immediate surroundings. Our results from 2014 are only the beginning to a lot more work we have planned over the next years. We look forward to making this relationship even stronger and making this global initiative particularly relevant to the children in Qatar.”The Soft Toys for Education campaign was launched in 2003, benefiting over 11mn children globally. Supporting over 99 projects in 46 countries worldwide, this campaign raised €67mn in total over the last 10 years and €10.1mn in 2014 alone.