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 in need were gifted Ikea Soft Toys collected through the campaign at a special ceremony on Tuesday.
Designed to improve lives of children less fortunate, this campaign was activated in the Ikea store at Doha Festival City. Between November 6, 2014 and January 3, 2015, for every soft toy sold at Ikea stores worldwide, Ikea Foundation donated €1 to Unicef. As a local ‘give twice’ initiative, Ikea Qatar customers were also encouraged to donate the 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.
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.”
Dr Ibrahim El Ziq, Gulf Area Representative, Unicef said: “Our work towards improving the conditions for education of children worldwide cannot be done in a year or through a single programme. Our partnership over the last 10 years is our collective effort towards continuing to improve lives with new vigour every year.”
Ibrahim bin Abdullah Al Mohannadi, Executive Director for Local Development, Qatar Charity said: “There is much work to be done within Qatar. 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 Peninsula
