AAB, DEAP partner for ‘Keep Qatar Clean’ environmental initiative
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  • Arshia khan
  • Our News Bureau
  • October 7, 2020

AAB, DEAP partner for ‘Keep Qatar Clean’ environmental initiative

Doha: Abdullah Abdulghani and Bros. Co. (AAB), an exclusive distributor of Toyota and Lexus
automobiles in Qatar, has partnered with Doha Environmental Action Projects (DEAP), a
volunteering organisation, for ‘Keep Qatar Clean’ environmental initiative, that seeks to fight against plastic pollution and clean up beaches.

This is in line with Toyota’s global CSR values consisting of contribution towards sustainable
development which includes environmental care and consideration towards the planet.

Upon recognizing DEAP’s committed drive in cleaning up the beaches and dunes across Qatar, AAB
extended its support to maximize its reach and clean-ups across the country and increase awareness
and knowledge for the public.

Acting CEO and COO – Automotive Division of AAB, R K Murugan signed the collaboration agreement
with Director of DEAP, Jose Saucedo. AAB has agreed to provide logistic support for DEAP’s daily
operations by way of a Toyota Hilux 4×4 and transportation for DEAP volunteers during the clean-
ups.

A beach clean-up was held recently to launch the partnership between AAB and DEAP, in line with
the World Cleanup Day in one of the beach areas in the north.

AAB has a continuing partnership with the Public Parks Department in the seedlings to your home
and reduction of carbon footprint projects.

These partnerships that promote environmental care reinforce and manifest AAB’s commitment and
active role in contributing towards the fulfilment of Qatar National Vision 2030.

By: Nawal Mukadam
Email Id:nawal-m@crowdteck.com

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  • Arshia khan
  • Corona Update
  • July 31, 2020

COVID-19: NGO Bhumi provides monetary assistance to over 14k daily wagers

Even as India grapples with the containment
of the COVID-19 pandemic, that has wrecked havoc in the lives of people and
caused job losses to millions, Bhumi, one of the country’s largest independent
and youth volunteer non-profit organization has helped over 14 thousand daily
wage workers with direct account transfers and monetary help to over 5000
children in 80 shelter hopes.

In an interview to crowdteck.com, Dr
Prahalathan KK, Co-founder and an ophthalmologist by profession, shares his
experiences while the NGO stood at the forefront in battling the menace of
Corona virus.

Q. Tell us more about NGO Bhumi..

A. Bhumi was founded in 2006 and is today
one of India’s largest youth volunteering organizations. Every year, we enable
over 25,000 volunteers across India for Sustainable Development Goals. We
believe that our approach to education and volunteerism gets stronger and
better with every stride we proactively take. We have over a decade’s
experience in education and are currently working with over 25,000 children.
Bhumi is also a leader in Volunteer Engagement, consistently contributing over 3
lakh hours of volunteering nationally. Our vision is to help build a more
influential, equal and socially-conscious society.

Q. How is your organization coming forth to
help the community during the time of lockdown?

A. In an effort to help the daily wagers,
our helpline volunteers worked day and night to verify their details and
support them with fund transfers. With consistent efforts of our COVID Support
Team, we have managed to help 14,104 daily wagers with direct fund transfers and
5,085 children in 80 shelter homes with grocery supplies. Our education program
teams were also quick to adapt and reinvent themselves with the support of
volunteers. We have managed to initiate online classes for all our projects,
thereby benefiting 1,310 children from 106 shelter homes across India, engaging
around 705 volunteers. Bhumi’s corporate volunteering engagements were also
hugely impacted ‘Work from Home’ being the new norm in this COVID situation. We
have engaged 21 corporates and are organizing close to 60 events with 1,151
corporate volunteers.

Q. What were the challenges faced by your
teams and volunteers when they were on the ground and helping people?

A. With virtual volunteering being the
dominant feature, a lot of our challenges revolved around the use of
technology. The shelter homes, where we wanted to conduct online classes, usually
had little or no access to the internet and computer systems. Even places where
they had access, we had to educate them on online tools like Zoom, Google Meet
etc extensively. Another major challenge was lack of a human touch in these
virtual volunteering initiatives while we were delivering a curriculum or an
activity. It was difficult to understand the emotions and feelings of beneficiaries.
For on-ground volunteering like grocery deliveries and support, fears of
contacting COVID, infrastructural difficulties like transport etc were also
seen.

Q. Did your NGO collaborate with any
Corporates for CSR based activities during the outbreak to help the affected?

A. Our Corporate partners Cognizant, Mckinsey and NTT DATA supported us with funds. Others like IBM, Oracle, CGI, DXC Technology, PayPal, Flex, Aspire Systems, BNP Paribas and Global Mantra Innovations helped us in effectively managing our helpline and delivering groceries to people in need through Corporate volunteering.

By: Nawal Mukadam
Email Id: M@crowdteck.com

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  • Arshia khan
  • interview
  • March 17, 2020

Child Rights and You: A step towards making children smile

CRY – Child Rights and You is an
Indian NGO that believes in every child’s right to a childhood – to live,
learn, grow and play. For over 4 decades, CRY and its 850 initiatives have
worked with parents and communities to ensure Lasting Change in the lives of
more than 3,000,000 underprivileged children, across 19 states in India

Could you tell us the primary motto of your NGO?

CRY’s purpose is to ensure happy and healthy childhoods for
underprivileged Indian children. To ensure their rights are protected and
honoured in a society that is built on respect for dignity, justice, and equity
for all. 

Our mission is to enable people to take responsibility for the
situation of the deprived Indian child and motivate them to seek resolution
through individual and collective action, thereby enabling children to realise
their full potential. And people to discover their potential for action and
change.

What are the programs you undertake to ensure child rights and
welfare?

In terms of our work, we are proud of our unwavering focus on
reaching “the last child” –i.e. the most marginalised children. We work with
children in remote, rural areas, children in conflict zones and urban slums or
backward communities. It is our experience that in situations of extreme
deprivation and struggle for the entire community, it is always children who
are the most vulnerable and neglected. Hence, our interventions address the
root causes of inequity and deficits to ensure that children have a healthy
life, a chance at a proper education, a space to be heard and a safe and secure
environment to grow up in. 

What is the most common issue adversely impacting kids across the
country today? How does your organization aspire to tackle the same?

Access to basic education for many children across the country
continues to be a challenge even today. Even though the number of enrolments in
schools have increased, a section of both boys and girls, especially those between
the ages of 14 to 18 years are compelled to drop-out of schools only to end up
working as child labour across various industries including that of agriculture
or to get married.  

There are also multiple challenges in terms of addressing issues
of malnutrition. To address the multiple issues that confront children today,
CRY’s interventions focus on the following: 

  • Building an agency for children
  • Provision of interim services to meet the immediate and critical needs of children e.g. providing non-formal education or support classes to school drop-outs
  • Influencing knowledge, attitudes, and practices of parents that impinge on children’s rights e.g. superstitions detrimental to breastfeeding practices or attitudes that keep girls out of school
  • Mobilisation and empowerment of underprivileged communities to increase engagement on children’s issues
  • Capacity building of service providers, e.g. teachers, to ensure delivery of quality services
  • Creation or participation in networks and alliances to enable child-friendly policies

Furthermore, our broad-based experience on the ground along with
our efforts in the policy and research arena has given us a unique perspective
on both the micro and macro-level influences on children’s issues. This has
enabled us to create sustainable and replicable models of intervention. 

Do you receive CSR funds? What forms are the primary source of
monetary assistance for your organisation?

Our primary source of funds is individual donations. 
However, we do receive CSR funds, and some of our corporate funders have
included large MNCs like P&G and Oracle, as well as prominent Indian
companies like Hero, Bajaj, and Marico.  

Do you think CSR implementation has been smooth in the country
till now? How could it be enhanced? 

India has a unique corporate social responsibility (CSR) provision
under the Indian Companies Act 2013, which mandates CSR for any company meeting
certain profit, turnover or net-worth criteria.

While the CSR clause is a breakthrough initiative in the CSR arena,
there are some limitations to the clause which need to be debated and
addressed, namely: 

A mandatory CSR spend can result in an increase in the focus on
quantifying CSR vs. a qualitative assessment of what makes strategic sense for
the company. It also runs the risk of diluting the attention on how companies
make their profit rather than focusing on how they spend their profit. CSR has
to be strategic and linked to the business. 

The Act recommends that the company shall give preference to the
local areas around where it operates. This may result in skewed resource
allocation as most business houses and manufacturing facilities are located in
developed states while the resource requirement is more in the under-developed
states where industrial presence is limited. 

The Act also encourages companies to implement their CSR
activities by establishing their own trusts/societies. However, social and
development issues are often complex and local civil society organisations are
likely to be better equipped to understand these unique issues and offer
solutions for the same. In addition, many of these civil society organisations
operate from the larger framework of social justice and not just on a project
or activity basis.  Therefore, partnering with such organisations will
enable bringing in the aspect of social sustainability into the CSR
strategy. 

The clause does not address core business impacts as set out by
the guidelines developed by the Government itself and the state’s duties in
line with the UN Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights which India
endorsed in 2011.

In addition to some of the limitations in the law itself, there is
a lack of a unified view on CSR, which includes lack of clarity on the
definition of CSR, its agenda, actions, and reporting. The question for
corporations and CSR practitioners is how to craft CSR strategies that reflect
a company’s business values while addressing social, humanitarian and
environmental challenges.

A few key elements to be considered are given below: 

  • Integration of
    responsibility within the long term objectives of the organization. It’s
    aligned with the vision and mission of the organization.
  • Structure and
    role definition: Who within the company is responsible for crafting and
    driving CSR strategy and implementation?
  • Stakeholders:
    Which different stakeholders will the CSR strategy involve, influence and
    impact? 
  • Clear
    objectives and programme design
  • Communication
    – internal and external for synergy, adoption, and extension of agenda
  • Reviewing
    mechanism – a measurement of impact and reporting 

About Kreeanne Rabadi:

A post-graduate diploma holder in Early Childhood Care &
Education (ECCE) from Sophia College Polytechnic, Kreeanne Rabadi began her
career at ORG-MARG designing market research projects for children. She was
with the company for six years, conducting qualitative and quantitative
research for a diverse set of clients – MTV, Colgate Palmolive, Godrej Foods,
etc. 

She joined CRY-Child Rights and You in 2000 to
lead the Resource Generation team in the Western region. Kreeanne spent five
years with CRY in India, enabling her team to consistently exceed its revenue
targets. In 2005, she was assigned the challenge of setting up the marketing
function for CRY America, for which she moved to the US.

By: Abdullah

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  • Admin
  • Our News Bureau
  • January 28, 2020

SAIL launches SERVICE to facilitate CSR

Steel Authority of
India Limited has set SAIL
Employee Rendering Voluntarism and Initiatives for Community Engagement
(Service) where SAIL employees would willingly engage in community development
and philanthropic projects to accomplish CSR targets provisioned in the Company
Act 2013 

Under the CSR initiative, SAIL Employee Rendering Voluntarism and
Initiatives for Community Engagement (SERVICE) will shell out funds towards the
education and health of the underprivileged. The CSR unit of the Public Sector
Undertaking would also tackle women empowerment, sanitation, and environmental
issues. 

“This year marks 70
years of our Constitution coming into effect. Shri Ramnath Kovind, Honorable
President of India, remarked that while being alert about their rights,
citizens should also be conscious of their duties. Through SERVICE, employees
of SAIL will come forward to perform their social duties voluntarily and
contribute towards social welfare and nation-building,” highlighted, Dharmendra
Pradhan, Union Minister, Government of India.

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  • Admin
  • Our News Bureau
  • December 27, 2019

Dabur India to develop schools in Rajasthan

Dabur India Ltd has
adopted four public schools in Rajasthan as a part of their CSR drive where the
private firm would be spending on the school infrastructure creating an
amicable environment for the young learners to match up the pace of mainstream
education.

The four schools
adopted by Dabur India – two in Newai and two in Alwar- will have separate
sanitised lavatories for boys and girls besides having drinking water
facilities so that the students get all adequate facilities at the
school. 

“Dabur is committed to
making a positive contribution to a more sustainable future for India. As a part
of this mission, we have been working towards improving the learning
environment for children in backward areas across the country. We understand
that schools are foundations for imparting education to the younger generation,”
said, A Sudhakar, Head-CSR, Dabur India Ltd.

As
per the Companies Act 2013, the private firms are required to shell out a part
of their profits towards community development programs in order to tackle
escalating income gaps and making development more inclusive.

Read More
  • Arshia khan
  • interview
  • June 18, 2019

In Conversation With: Devendra Kumar Gupta, Founder & CEO, Ladli Foundation Trust

90% of women health issues are linked to menstrual hygiene, and educating them about it would be the real empowerment, says Devendra Kumar Gupta Founder & CEO – Ladli Foundation Trust

 

Read More
  • Arshia khan
  • Insights
  • April 17, 2019

The Good Samaritan…

A man who’s lived his life serving people, follows simple ideologies in life. Modest, down to earth and humble, Mr Hassan Chougule recounts his life’s journey with Arshia Khan

Read More
  • Arshia khan
  • interview
  • April 11, 2019

“Education and Economic Empowerment of Muslims in India is the ultimate goal of AMP,” – Mr Aamir Edresy, Founder, AMP

“Education and Economic Empowerment of Muslims in India is the ultimate goal of AMP,” says Mr Aamir Edresy, Founder, Association of Muslim Professionals (AMP). He discusses the focus and agenda for AMP in conversation with Arshia Khan

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  • Arshia khan
  • Our News Bureau
  • January 30, 2019

NASSCOM Foundation hosts The CSR Leadership Conference in Mumbai

Brings together 150+ delegates – Industry leaders, NGO heads, Government Officials, CSR thought leaders, civil society members, and social innovators to help drive the Inclusive India Growth Story using CSR

Read More
  • Arshia khan
  • interview
  • January 15, 2019

In Conversation With: T Arif Ali, General Secretary, Human Welfare Foundation

“Three out of ten Urban Muslims are poor i.e. officially come below the poverty line living on a monthly income of Rs 550 and less,” highlights, T Arif Ali, General Secretary, Human Welfare Foundation (HWF). He discusses in detail about the activities of HWF which is working towards the upliftment of the poor irrespective of their caste, religion and race.     

Read More
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