Pratham USA today announced that Emmy-award winning actress Archie Panjabi will serve as an Ambassador to the organization, lending her voice and celebrity to its cause of educating India's underprivileged children.   Her first formal appearance as Pratham Ambassador will be at the 2011 Pratham Gala in New York scheduled for October 5th at the Pierre Hotel.  Archie will host this year's event that typically will raise upwards of $1.5 million and attracts a sold out crowd of prominent philanthropists and business people from the Tri-State area.

Archie Panjabi currently stars as Kalinda Sharma on CBS's critically acclaimed hit drama, The Good Wife.   Her big screen credits include domestic and international hits Bend It Like Beckham, Yasmin, The Constant Gardner, A Good Year and A Mighty Heart.

As an Amabassador to Pratham, Archie will help create awareness in the United States and abroad about the 100 million undereducated youth in India today.  "The best way to shine the light on education in India is to continue to bring this incredibly important conversation to the global stage.  These children are our future and in turn, we are theirs," Panjabi said.

Archie is looking forward to participating in Pratham programs in India this November and spending time with the Pratham staff, volunteers, and of course the children served by the organization.   

About Pratham:

Pratham, which means "first" in Sanskrit, was founded in the slums of Mumbai in 1994 with UNICEF support.  Today, Pratham's direct urban programs, including pre-schools, community libraries and remedial learning programs reach hundreds of thousands of children every year.  In 2007, with the support of the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation, Pratham launched the Read India campaign, an innovative, low-cost effort to reach the  ~100 million children in India who cannot read, write or do basic math.  With the continued support of the Hewlett Foundation in 2010, the Read India campaign has entered its second phase, focusing its attention at the village level and teaching more advanced learning skills.
 
Pratham's Annual Status of Education Report (ASER) evaluates India's status of education through direct testing of over 700,000 children in 16,000 villages across India.  ASER is the only annual measurement of basic literacy and numeracy conducted at scale in India today and its widespread dissemination has helped focus government attention on the issue of learning. To support newly literate children across India, Pratham Books has developed and published over 130 titles and printed over 3 million children's books in local Indian languages.
 
Pratham's programs have been recognized internationally for their innovation and impact. Recently, Pratham received a 2011 Skoll Award for Social Entrpreneurship, the CNN-IBN Indian of the Year Award in the public service category and the 2010 Henry R. Kravis Leadership Prize.

With an annual budget of less than $15 million, Pratham combines large-scale impact with an extremely efficient use of funds.  Pratham USA (www.PrathamUSA.org), a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization with a four-star rating (the highest possible) from Charity Navigator, accepts tax deductible contributions from U.S. donors.

About Archie Panjabi

Emmy Award-winning actress, Archie Panjabi, currently stars as Kalinda Sharma on CBS' s critically acclaimed hit drama, The Good Wife. Archie's portrayal as the mysterious and tenaciously tough investigator captivated both viewers and critics alike earning her the Emmy for Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Drama Series (2010).
 
Her big screen credits include domestic and international hits Bend It Like Beckham, Yasmin, The Constant Gardner, A Good Year and A Mighty Heart. Her international film accolades include the Best Actress Award at the Reims Festival (2005), the Shooting Star Award at the Berlin International Film Festival (2005), the Best Actress Award at the Mons International Festival (2005) and The Chopard Trophy at The Cannes Film Festival (2007).  She was named one of the Top 10 Faces on TV to Watch by Variety (2009), celebrated as one of the Breakout TV Stars of the Year by Entertainment Weekly (2010) and named as one of the Top Young Power Women Under 40 by Verve Magazine (2011).

In addition to her work as an actress, Archie has dedicated herself to several philanthropic endeavors globally.  In 2011, she was appointed as an Ambassador to Pratham USA representing the largest educational movement in India.  Additional highlights include: Rotary International in partnership with UNICEF, The Gates Foundation, The CDC and WHO for the "We are this Close" international campaign to eradicate the last 1% of polio left in the world, The National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute (NHLBI) and partner organizations for their national campaign, The Heart Truth®, where the campaign's goal is to increase awareness of the danger of heart disease, the #1 killer of women.  In support of women's rights, she has partnered with Amnesty International to head their Stop Violence Against Women campaign to change the "no recourse to public funds" rule that traps women in a cycle of violence.  In 2011, she accepted an invitation to participate in Harvard University's prestigious Artist in Residence Program in Cambridge, Massachusetts and received an honorary doctorate from her alma mater Brunel University in England.

Born in the United Kingdom (Edgware, Middlesex, England), Panjabi spent a portion of her childhood in Mumbai (Bombay) India and considers herself "part Bombayite, part British".  With a great love of travel, she enjoys exploring new countries and cultures identifying causes and issues to which she can lend her support.

A graduate from Brunel University in England, with a degree in Management Studies, Archie had always wanted to become an actress.  She wrote a letter to actor Nick Berry of EastEnders, hired an agent and her career began.  Ms. Panjabi currently resides in New York and London. 

For further information, contact
Sangita Karra, Pratham USA
914-260-3793   

PS: Pratham Boston will be holding its Annual Gala at the Boston Marriott Cambridge on Oct. 1, 2011. Fr details, visit http://prathamusa.tix.com/Event.asp?Event=382473.

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