Mahindra Susten’s CSR vision, ‘To serve and give back to the communities within which we work’ is evident in all the projects and activities under their wings. The team not only ensures high quality work but also consistent care towards the local community.
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Project Sehat
Community health is one of Susten’s prime concerns. Keeping this is mind we have provided innovative water filters certified by WHO to schools. We have also installed RO plants in the schools where TDS levels were found to be high. Students and villagers who are deprived of clean water can now access sweet tasting water. Our team has trained over 1,500 students on sanitation, hygiene and the benefits of hand washing.
Other than this, we conduct medical camps where we have been able to cover more than 1,000 villagers giving services like ACN/ PNC, RTI/ STI, Gynecological, Family Planning, Laboratory tests, General Health checkup and contraceptive services.
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Gram Vikas
Susten’s sites are located in remote areas where infrastructure is a prime requirement as well as prime challenge. The team has executed several infrastructure projects for the welfare of the sites, like building primary health centres, community centres, refurbishing school buildings, building water tankers and even developing concrete roads in certain locations. We have 9 such projects in 3 districts. Our objective of ‘Better rural infrastructure with our expertise in construction’ keeps us going on.
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Samantar
The Nidar Beti initiative focuses on providing school- going female children with self-defence training and imparting self-confidence in them. The company overtook the initiative after it observed that girls and women’s education rates were low in one of their sites, Rawra and neighbouring villages.
Till date more than 3,000 girls across 15 schools have been trained at six project locations. In FY 2017, 100 girls have been trained and certified in the Martial Arts with Green Belt.
The initiative has been executed by Captain Jaspal Singh – an Ex-serviceman who attained a Black belt, 2nd Degree from South Africa in BUDOKAI (Japanese Martial Art).
This initiative not only helped to increase the participation rate by 10%, but also significantly lowered the drop-out rates.
Such initiatives have helped to build confidence and aspiration towards gender equality among these girls.
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Suryashakti
Inspired from the Power of Sun and harnessed with feminine ingenuity, the Suryashakti project offers women from various socio-economic backgrounds a brand-new opportunity to venture into the male dominated space of EPC.
With the widespread development in the solar industry, we envision that with the right kind of training and opportunity, women will be able to play a pivotal and indispensable role in the solar industry, bringing about a shift in women’s work culture in a sunrise sector.
With advanced training imparting knowledge on Solar power plant PV installation, financial literacy, Computer literacy, big-data analysis to self-defence (Budokoi Martial Arts, certified with Green Belts), Self-development, Entrepreneurship skills and effective communication, this project has been crucial for Susten, in becoming a true enabler of empowering the community and creating skilled workforce.
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Gyandeep
We not only believe in enhancing the level of education, but also provide creative and collaborative means to get the actual results.
To upscale our Sahyog project at multiple sites where our employees are volunteering in different NGOs, orphanages, Government schools to share their skills as a responsible corporate citizen. This involves career guidance, teaching, self-defense, painting, story- telling, etc. Local and regional festival celebrations along with the big festivals like Diwali at the schools near the sites give them flair of inclusiveness and satisfaction.
One of our major initiatives being the Reading assessment, conducted with ASER tool in Mahabubnagar where more than 800 students from 3 schools had the opportunity to participate. 12 volunteers spent 110 ESOPS hours mapping the reading proficiency of the students. After this detailed assessment, libraries with over 1500 books for each reading level were distributed in these schools to help students read, learn and upgrade to a higher reading level.
Lectures delivered on the critical topics like clean energy, global warming, sanitation and hygiene, biodiversity and environmental conservation adds up to the value of education for students. This helps in building their perspective in the new light of swiftly developing the world.
Rural infrastructure
development
Health and
sanitation
Women empowerment &
reduce social inequality
Environment protection &
restoration
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860
Total ESOPS hours clocked
in from April 2015 to July 2016 -
141
No. of volunteer
recorded from April 2015 to July 2016
Third Party Assessments done
Impact assessment – conducted for 50 MW, Bijeypur, Morena
Need assessment conducted for 2 sites – 100 MW Renew, Mehbubnagar and 350MW Soft Bank, Kurnool
Need Assessment in Telangana
Initiative
The project selection has been possible by engaging different stakeholders by targeting different focus areas, like environment, education, healthcare, rural infrastructure and swatch bharat.
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Interactions with School Teachers, Kurnool
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Interactions with Social Forestry DFO, Kurnool
Coverage
Ponakal, Raichella, Guddibanda villages of Mahabobnagar; Ghani and Brahmanpalli villages of Kurnool
ESOPs Hours Recorded: 90 | ESOPs Volunteers Recorded: 6
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Interaction with school teachers and students, kurnool
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Interactions with Village Community, Mahaboobnagar
Impact Assessment in Sheopur, Madhya Pradesh
Initiative
The impact assessment was conducted on the 9th and 10th April, where we interacted with different stakeholders and beneficiaries targeting our projects Samantar, Gram Vikas, Gyaandeep and Green Guardian.
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Interaction with Senior Citizens and their family for Project Samantar:
Education for Adults -
Interaction with sarpanch on Project Green guardians:
Cleaning of River Koari
Coverage
Ponakal, Raichella, Guddibanda villages of Mahabobnagar; Ghani and Brahmanpalli villages of Kurnool
ESOPs Hours Recorded: 90 | ESOPs Volunteers Recorded: 6
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Interaction with School authorities on Project Gram Vikas:
School boundary wall and flooring construction -
Interaction with girl students on
Project Nidar Beti
Jeevandan
Blood donation drives are being organized across sites. It has now become regular activity amongst Mahindra Susten’s internal stakeholders to donate blood for community welfare. We are closely aligned with our HSE motto of zero impact of human life to the Social value of human life. Hence,we have 230 registered blood donors who donated blood as a part of this project.
Swachh Bharat
The Susten team is also a part of the Swacch Bharat Mission where they enthusiastically deploy members to work towards cleaner surroundings and engage in community level participation and awareness on sanitation and healthcare. A recent intervention in this area was the beautification of Mumbai’s age-old Andheri station. This involved painting of the entrance, signage, booking office walls, foyer, staircases and pillars. The team recorded more than 341 ESOPs hours, which was spent in filling colours in sketches and designs made by the core team. 25 employees from Susten also participated in cleaning Sangivi ghat at Nirmal site which is one of the nodal sources of drinking water in the village. Besides this, we have made interventions at our site location which include inculcating community awareness through participatory approach, installingDust bins, removal of garbage from the villages, Mowing tracks and conducting community mobilization to help create cleaner and greener surroundings.
Making more play friendly schools by creating play scapes using industrial scraps
60% of village schools don’t have any playgrounds, which effects the attendance levels, school drop outs and quality of learning through play. Mahindra Susten, after partnering with experts has designed of a kind play scape made in India using industrial waste like industrial waste like oil drums, cable drums, steel cable drums and wooden pellets.Unique design:Susten has achieved another milestone in sustainability by bringing in the vital reduce, recycle and reuse concepts in upcycling of industrial waste These play scapes help bring back play to the children who don’t have the luxury of urban playgrounds. This is a one of a kind play scape made in India using the industrial waste from a solar park, and must be adopted as a best practice amongst companies to imbibe sustainability and environmental consciousness.
As per our 3rd party need assessment conducted the school children revealed their interest in obtaining sports equipment like football, cricket bats and balls, etc. for their school. The school was provided with a playground as well as a Physical Education teacher. However, the students were unable to learn any sport because of the lack of sports equipment. A notable observation was that, as opposed to general stereotypes regarding girls in rural India, girls in this school were equally enthusiastic about sports equipment as boys were.
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School Ceiling Refurbishment in Secondary School of Rawra
Need
The ceiling was in a dilapidated condition and during monsoons the water would seep through the walls making it difficult for students to be seated and made to study there.ESOPs Hours Recorded: 84
No. of ESOPs volunteers: 2
Estimated Expenditure: 3Lakh.Initiative
The site engineers spend their time in evaluating the immediate need, getting required quotation for the work and then finally
monitoring the work and it’s progress.
Duration: 2 Months
Hamara Swaasth Hamare Haath: Sanitation Drive
Coverage: Tanda, Gudibanda, Raichella and Ponnakal
Impact: Awareness and Sensitization helps the students in practicing a healthy and disease free lifestyle.
Estimated Cost: ₹5000
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650 students were trained through sanitation & preventive health practices drive.
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64 ESOPs hours recorded by 8 employees in two schools.
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Teaching the right technique of hand wash
ESOPs Activities Planned for August
Conduct a blood donation camp in association with
Arpan blood bank.
Swatch Bharat Mission:
Engage employees to clean the nearest municipal hospital.
Organize a plantation drive in Kurnool and Ponakkal to
fulfil commitment of 2000 plantations in FY17.
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Hariyali target = 2000 tress– Plant 5 tress for every tree
we clear at every site -
ESOPS target = 1600 person hours– Cover more than 70% employees
– 4-5 hours / employee
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Overview
Being a socially responsible company, Mahindra Susten assigns high priority to promoting inclusive growth of the communities in which it operates in. The company has actively undertaken initiatives across various focus areas which include health, education, women empowerment and vocational training, in the villages that are in the vicinity of the solar plants. These projects aim to empower the inhabitants of the village, and help them access basic amenities.
To understand the impact of Mahindra Susten’s business on Rawra,
it becomes important to take into account the problems faced by the village before the company entered the region.
High migration levels
The village of Rawra largely comprises of dry grasslands, and its economy largely relied on agriculture and animal husbandry.
Therefore, before Mahindra Susten established its operations in the region, the inhabitants of Rawra had little or no access to
sources of employment apart from agriculture and animal husbandry. However, due to the harshness of the climatic conditions
of the region and scarcity of water, the productivity and viability of these two livelihood sources is very low. This situation forced
a large proportion of the people at Rawra to migrate to nearby towns and cities in search for employment.
Low aspiration levels
Due to the paucity of opportunities to gain fruitful employment, the level of aspirations among youth and students was very poor in Rawra. Youth and children in the village had little motivation to obtaining and completing school education, and very few went on to pursue higher education. Furthermore, because of lack of awareness regarding
importance of education and earning opportunities, families of children and youth also assigned very low priority to getting them educated. As a result, many who fell under the employable age in the village didn’t possess the skills and education required to access employment in the organized sector.
Poorly developed infrastructure
The quality of basic infrastructure in the village of Rawra was highly inadequate before Mahindra Susten established its operations in the region. The village lacked well developed pakka roads, and most of the inhabitants live in kachha houses. Furthermore, the village lacked access to basic medical services. The nearest hospital was nearly 18 kilometers from the village, and majority of the villagers couldn’t afford its services.
Overall Impact of Mahindra Susten’s business on the community
The study showed that Mahindra Susten’s operations have had a positive impact on Rawra village across several developmental indicators.
A snapshot of the manner in which Mahindra Susten improved the lives of the inhabitants of Rawra has been given below:
Reduction in migration levels
The establishment of Mahindra Susten’s operations at Rawra led to creation of job opportunities in the region that were earlier unavailable. Both men and women were able to find sources of employment at the project site. Many of the
inhabitants of the region were employed as full time employees, thereby bringing about stability and security in the income, which in turn improved their standard of living. Mahindra Susten’s operations also provided significant benefits to those who were employed on a contractual basis. The contractual employment at Mahindra Susten helped train them in skills which in turn equipped them to find employment at project sites of other companies who had established their operations in the region. According to Pahad Singh, after Mahindra Susten established its operations in the region “Migration levels reduced by up to 90%”.
Increased aspiration levels
The employment opportunities created by Mahindra Susten’s operations at Rawra had a direct impact on
enhancing the aspirational levels among students with respect to education and employment. Students were now motivated to perform well in school and pursue higher education because it would help them find employment in Mahindra Susten. Mahindra Susten’s employees also invested efforts into creating awareness among students and their parents about the importance of education. This was done through not only direct interaction with students and parents, but also by organizing events during which students could visit the solar plants of Mahindra Susten to understand its functioning and the kind of employment opportunities that they could avail of there.
Improved Infrastructure
Mahindra Susten supported the construction and upgradation of roads in the village of Rawra. The company also set up a Primary Healthcare Centre in the village that provided the villagers access to basic healthcare services. The impact of the Primary Healthcare Centre has been discussed in greater detail in the subsequent section. Moreover, the increased income that was generated from employment opportunities created by Mahindra Susten enabled villagers to build pakka houses. In this manner, Mahindra Susten helped strengthen the basic infrastructure of the village in direct as well as indirect ways.
Primary Health Care Centre
Being a remote area, Rawra village lacks basic infrastructure like safe drinking water, electricity, sanitation, education. In addition to these problems, there was no full time medic to respond to any medical emergencies like deliveries or accidents in the village or nearby areas. The village even lacks the basic infrastructure required for a Primary Health Care Centre, where a trained medical person could offer services. The nearest hospital in the area is located 18 km away, in Bhap. The lack of any medical attendant in the area has had a severe effect on the maternal health of women, which is also evident from the high infant mortality rates in the area. Furthermore, this has also deprived the community from having a basic awareness of major health issues, maternal care, HIV, sanitation etc. Mahindra Susten had constructed a PHC (Primary Healthcare Centre) in the village, just opposite the Rawra Upper secondary school. The building has helped in retaining a full time ANM (Auxiliary Nursing idwife) in the Village. She resides along with her family in the PHC built by Mahindra, using a room as a dispensary. The government certified ANM is available 24 hours at the PHC and the patients can visit her any time. She also provides her services by visiting people’s homes in case of medical emergencies.
