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CORPORATE VOICE -
‘Should CSR stand for citizen's social responsibility ?' ....SASHI REDDI
WHEN something becomes an acronym, it is clearly part of a large trend. Last year when being interviewed by someone I could not immediately recall what CSR meant, though I had been involved in various social initiatives for over five years. CSR, as everyone knows, stands for corporate social responsibility. Sometimes I wonder if it should stand for citizen's social responsibility. After all, companies are made of people and it is really the people who drive such initiatives.
Over the years, many of my colleagues at AppLabs had been volunteering their time to various social causes. I had been doing some activities on my own and all of these had a life of their own. A couple of years ago, we decided that we needed to be more efficient at how we made a contribution to society and that was how we launched AppLabs Charitable Trust (ACT). This gave us a vehicle to channel everyone's efforts using our formal management practices of doing fund raising, defining objectives, implementing our plans, and following through to monitor the outcomes.
Fundraising was easy. Many of our staff were already donating their time and money so using ACT as their vehicle to fund initiatives was a simple step. In fact, we suggested an approach where a small monthly amount could be automatically deducted from an employee's pay if they wanted to contribute to ACT. The company then matched whatever was raised from the employees so that it was an initiative that everyone knew was a serious push by everyone to make a difference.
The objectives of ACT were defined quarterly by a team of employees who formed the decision-making committee. Membership in this committee rotated quarterly so that many different people had an opportunity to suggest what was important and how they would like to implement it. However, all of us agreed upfront that we need to work within some broad areas. We picked primary education and healthcare as two key initiatives that we wanted to make a difference in. Each quarter specific ideas were implemented in these two broad areas of education and healthcare.
In primary education, the company works with four schools in Hyderabad, India - one government primary school and three privately run schools under ‘Sharada Vidya Niketan' in the outskirts of Hyderabad. The government primary school houses around 130 boys and girls from class I to class 5; the other three private schools have around 200 students, most of them orphans aged between 3 and 11. Activities in these schools include donation of uniforms, text books and stationary items. ACT members regularly visit the schools on special occasions like festivals and national holidays, including Independence Day and Children's day.
Many of our staff volunteer their time in these schools and this is perhaps a bigger contribution than the funds we have deployed. AppLabs works closely with Nirmal Hriday, an NGO run by Mother Teresa Charitable Trust which supports 17 old age homes in Andhra Pradesh and 14 in Orissa, and provides shelter to destitute patients suffering from tuberculosis, diabetes, as well as HIV-positive patients.
AppLabs makes quarterly donation of life saving medicines to the organiasation. Other initiatives include organising quarterly blood donation camps organised in association with the Chiranjeevi Charitable Trust in Hyderabad. Over 300 employees support the cause at every camp. ACT also regularly collaborates with premier hospital/healthcare institutions like Wockhardt Hospitals, as well as supporting organisations like Family Services, a voluntary organisation based out of Bangalore. At the end of every quarter we review the progress we have made and the committee passes on its lessons to the next set of employees who take over the committee. It is a tremendous feeling to watch the youngsters getting so passionate about these activities. This culture of giving is starting to permeate in the organisation, where people are proud to belong and there is mutual respect for others.
(The author is founder and chairman, AppLabs)  |
| Also see : Corporate Social Responsibility |
