In India, knowing basic spoken English is an economic enabler. It gives children living in slums, access to better jobs, and possibly, a future outside the slums. Govt. education programs for underprivileged kids always needs huge infrastructure, investments and time. We needed a simple scalable solution that could be mounted easily and sustainably.

This campaign aims to create audio schools with the help of just one simple device - an FM radio set. Radio City partnered with candy sellers to teach spoken English to slum kids in a first-of-its-kind tie-up. Incentivizing them to park their cycles in these localities every week, Radio City aired specially designed 10-minute lessons on spoken English. Since the candy cycles are a natural draw for the kids, all the seller had to do was tune in to Radio City at the designated time slot, play the on-air English lesson and hand out free candy to every kid that sat through it.

We started with on-air promos that announced the idea of the Candy Class and how the kids should look out for candy sellers every Sunday at 4pm.

This was followed by tie-ups with local NGOs who helped us recruit these candy sellers and we incentivised them to park their cycles in different pockets of the slums, at the time of the weekly broadcast.

The first Candy Class aired on April 24 and we focused on Dharavi in Mumbai, Asia's largest slum. The program has been gaining momentum with every passing week and is now into its third episode.

Acorn Foundation is helping us scale up with even more Candy vendors in Dharavi and adjoining slums in Mumbai. With the program soon extending to 10 more cities, Radio City is hopeful that its impact will be significant.