The expansion is an example of the IKEA Foundation’s commitment to working with smaller, local partners as well as larger humanitarian aid organisations improving the lives of children in India.

The announcement came as the Foundation published its 2014 annual review, 178 million smiles, which also revealed that last year alone it gave 104 million in grants and in-kind donations to 40 partners operating in 46 countries. During the 25th anniversary of the Convention on the Rights of the Child, IKEA Foundation made six new grants to UNICEF, amounting to 24.9 million, boosting its commitment to children.

Per Heggenes, Chief Executive Officer, IKEA Foundation said, “Completion of 15 years in India is a very important milestone for us. In India, the IKEA Foundation works with 12 partners on long term programmes that change attitudes towards child labour, provide education and healthcare and empower women so children and families can break the cycle of poverty.

Other highlights from the report show that the Foundation gave 10 million in grants for disaster and emergency relief in 2014, including its biggest-ever emergency donation of 5 million to Medecins Sans Frontieres (MSF) to fight Ebola in West Africa, had helped 1.2 million babies get much-needed specialist care through UNICEF in India by the end of 2014, supplied 6,000 IKEA toys for UNICEF’s Early Childhood Development kits, which were sent to 11 countries in 2014, including Syria, Sierra Leone, Iraq and Afghanistan and donated a total of 150,000 IKEA mattresses, quilts and quilt covers to the UN refugee agency (UNHCR) for Syrian refugees living in Iraq.

EH News Bureau