MTV initiates the Swachh Bharat Campaign in true MTV Style with MTV The Junkyard Project

MTV, the iconic youth brand, has always been at the forefront of bringing about change and mobilizing the youth to take a stand. Last year, MTV urged India’s youth to go out and vote through a multimedia outreach campaign MTV’s Rock The Vote, that was critically acclaimed and won several awards across Indian and International forums. This year, MTV has taken upon itself to ensure that the youth of India come together for yet another worthy cause, cleaning up the mess that we see around us in order to make India the awesome country that it deserves to be; and by being a part of the Prime Minister’s Swachh Bharat campaign by integrating Music, Art and Bollywood with ‘MTV The Junkyard Project’.

MTV The Junkyard Project is MTV’s attempt to get the youth to not just watch from the stands, but to take an active action and drive ‘cleanliness’ on ground, while adding fun quotient by blending in music and art. To lend his support to this unique initiative, Bollywood’s rising star Sushant Singh Rajput picked up the broom to launch the campaign by sweeping a street in Mumbai as two bands played to cheer him. This event was hosted in association with JJ School of Arts, and kickstarts the 15 cities roll out of MTV The Junkyard Project.

MTV The Junkyard Project will be integrating this campaign across all the screens including Television, Mobile, Web with an on-ground outreach across 300 colleges and 15 city clean up drive. In addition, MTV is collaborating with musicians to create a quirky music video with a strong messaging of Swachh Bharat. While music gets youth grooving, humor urges them to spread the message. In line with that, MTV is partnering with leading humorists across the country to create compelling yet funny videos that deliver the message loud and clear. But, it is action that speaks louder than words! MTV is rolling out a massive 15 city clean up drive that identifies unofficial junkyards and convert them into art projects. The core idea is to create spaces that truly reflect the talent of the youth and their strong willingness to forge a new tomorrow. MTV The Junkyard Project is a true celebration of youth empowerment, talent and will.

Speaking about his association with the project, actor Sushant Singh Rajput said, “For a young nation like India, real change can be brought out only if the young people decide to do something about it. While today everyone’s talking about making India clean, very few are working on developing sustainable models for achieving it. MTV The Junkyard Project is a unique initiative because it successfully marries the power of the youth along with solutions that are long term and enables them to have fun while executing the whole idea - which is brilliant! I am thoroughly excited to be a part of this splendid project and would like to tell them that we are awesome and urge them to be the agents of change!””

Elaborating on the importance of the project, Aditya Swamy, EVP and Business Head, MTV said, “Warm is the new cool, young people care about the world they live in and believe that they can be powerful change agents. We at MTV have always created platforms for the youth to act and make a difference. This is a key part of what we do and we leverage all the assets of MTV to create a fun and impactful movement”

As with everything, MTV has its own twist on making even the activity of cleaning up the city a lot of fun. Clean up drives will see involvement of ace musicians, college bands, stand up comics making the clean up drive a fun-filled day, that is spent with a good purpose. MTV has launched MTV The Junkyard Project under the umbrella of MTV ACT, which is MTV’s pro-social initiative that lives 365 days and strives to create awareness on various social causes. In order to mobilize the youth of the nation MTV is collaborating with over 300 colleges across the country and involving student communities, musicians, humorists and street art experts to identify and clean up unofficial dumping grounds near colleges and convert these areas into spaces for art and music.

Along with Sushant Singh Rajput, various other Bollywood celebrities such as Arjun Rampal, Jacqaline Fernandes and Dhanush have leant their support to MTV The Junkyard Project. The initiative is being promoted across MTV’s on air and on line properties and through MTV’s college network program MTV Campus Diaries.

It’s time guys! ‘Stop Being Dirty, Start being Awesome’ with MTV The Junkyard Project!