CSR, a new dimension to Corporate Life
February 10, 2006 Leave a comment
I was so excited last week when I found a Economic Times supplement titled as Corporate Social Responsibility. This branding marks a whole new movement that we see in front of us, a great step forward to add a meaningful dimension to corporate life. CSR is about companies (not just the employees in private) themselves focusing on creating volunteer groups and identifying projects locally to fund, manage and deliver social causes systematically.
I guess the Tsunami Season last year was a starting point to all this. It had many of us Software Engineers give up our casual weekends in part or full to take up assignments with NGOs for local and outstation relief activities. I was no exception – this seemed a perfect chance to kickstart a journey in a direction I was always passionate about.
Having been assigned as the official in-charge of finding projects for Tsunami relief when my HeadQuarters was busy gathering funds, I zeroed down on the Chennai Chapter of Aid India, a US based non profit institution working extensively in India since many years now. We partnered together to plan a mid-term relief project towards improving Education standards in a Tsunami hit area with a significant budget. It turned out to be a concept primary school, due for starting this academic year 2006.
On field, I found out that many, many small and mid size companies from Chennai (in addition to the giants) were getting busy with different episodes of short-term relief work. I was personally left wowed by the volume of people in action during that time from age groups usually classified as interested in filling up themselves. I recollect a remarkable example – a Tamil guy called Bhanuchandar who resigned from some senior position in a Financial Firm in Dallas, flew in straight from the US and was coaching women over there to paint T-Shirts and powder spices for sale. Passion does speak for itself.
Let the good times keep rolling.
