Anand Govindrajan

Helping the community has been central to the Tata way of functioning. Rallis epitomises this commitment through the various social development projects it undertakes to help the less privileged

The contribution of the Tata Group towards community welfare in India has been immense, spawning visionary temples of learning and research, institutions of art and culture, and outstanding centres of healing. Less prominent, but just as significant, have been the numerous social development programmes funded and driven by Tata Group companies across the length and breadth of the country.

The group’s belief that the pursuit of profits must go hand in hand with a commitment to society is reflected best by the Tata Council for Community Initiatives (TCCI), which coordinates and integrates the various social projects undertaken within the group. But individual companies go it alone when they see an opportunity where their resources and expertise can make a difference.

That is what Rallis India, which has been at the forefront of the Tata Group’s community development initiatives, has been doing. Its employees have got together to establish ‘Rallilove', which, according to Zarin Poonawalla, head of Rallis’s corporate community initiatives, was started because the employees wanted to do more than just donate money to causes. Supporting this endeavour wholeheartedly is the company’s executive director and CEO, Rajeev Dubey.

Under the auspices of Rallilove, an initiative called ACTS (Assisting Communities Through Service) works on projects in four distinct areas: education, empowerment of women and the girl child, health, and support and relief for the destitute. The focus of the ACTS programmes is on underprivileged children.

Education
Rallilove volunteers are helping destitute children through different initiatives in the sphere of education.

• The Rallis Akansha Centre, operating from the JJ School in Mumbai, provides non-formal education to destitute children. After the completion of one year, 60 per cent of the children are integrated into formal schooling systems. These kids continue to visit the centre to have their progress monitored, and this helps keep the dropout rate in check. A Mentor Programme for the children from this centre has been initiated at Ralli House. The role of Rallilove Mentors is to become elder friends of the children, who need extra attention and develop their confidence and personality as a whole. Children in return have expressed their gratitude and are thrilled to have found a new group of friends, who could guide them with love in their lives. Rallis is the first corporate company amongst all Akanksha sponsored centres to have initiated this programme.
• Rallis volunteers conduct literacy classes for street children at Ralli House, the company’s headquarters in Mumbai. These street children are mostly those hauled up and detained by the railway police.
• Rallilove has been organising an ‘SSC preparatory lecture series’ for the past four years. Students from schools in and around Lote (near Chiplun), where the company’s factory is located, attend these lectures, which are conducted by experienced teachers from the vicinity. In addition to being taken through the syllabus, the students are taught how to cope with the stress of exams and develop confidence in their abilities. The results have been astounding — a rise in the pass percentage from 42 to 90 per cent.
• Company volunteers also assist the children at Nutan Vidyalaya, a school for tribal kids close to the Lote factory. The more needy among them are provided with uniforms, books and other items.
• Students from a municipal school near the Rallis factory at Turbhe in Navi Mumbai are also receiving a helping hand from the Rallilove team.
• The volunteers have also started, with the help of Snehasadan, `Amchi Kholi', a day-care centre — the first of its kind — for the many homeless children who descend on Mumbai from all parts of India. The railways have set aside a tiny room for these kids, and this room is called Amchi Kholi (which means ‘our room’ in Marathi). Rallilove volunteers occasionally organise excursion-cum-educational trips for the children.

Empowerment of women and the girl child

• Rallis runs a ‘girl child project’ in Kamathipura, Mumbai’s notorious red-light district. Underprivileged girls from the area are provided educational, dietary and psychosocial support. Vocational training is also imparted, with the girls being taught to sew and make artificial flowers, phenyl and liquid soap.
• The Rallilove team recently renewed its ties with the Kamla Mehta Dadar School in the heart of Mumbai. This 100-year-old institution provides free education to blind girls. The volunteers recently organised an informal stage performance, after which gift hampers were presented to the participants.
• Once a year the team serves lunch to inmates of the Industrial Home for Blind Women, a small but significant gesture of its commitment to this institution.
• Rallilove volunteers — in collaboration with Akshara (a women’s resource centre), the Maharashtra state’s Department of Women and Child Development and Unicef — recently organised a yuvati mela for institutionalised girls in the 14-22 age group. About 500 girls participated in this mela, held to celebrate International Women’s Day.
• In another project funded by TCCI, a group of lower-income women at Bandra in Mumbai was trained in making handicrafts, tailoring and other skills aimed at fostering self-employment.

Health

• Rallis was the main sponsor of Lifeline Express, a 'hospital-on-wheels' dispensing medical and surgical treatment to people who have perhaps never seen the inside of a hospital. The programme was inaugurated at Chiplun, in Maharashtra, in October 2001. A panel of doctors examined nearly 2,400 patients, 519 of who were operated upon for orthopaedic, eye and ENT (ear-nose-throat) problems. Several employees from the head office and the Lote factory offered their services to the medical team.
• Rallilove volunteers encountered a tougher challenge closer home with the residents of a tribal village at Khargar, 20 km from the company’s Turbhe factory in Navi Mumbai. These people had no electricity, water, roads or schools. Their only possessions were their animals, primarily goats, which were huddled into the villagers’ huts at night to shelter them from the surrounding wildlife. The volunteers held a medical camp and also explained the health hazards of this desperate practice. The event generated a lot of interaction between the villagers and social workers active in the area.
• Several free medical camps were organised in villages in the Akola and Ankleshwar districts of Maharashtra.
• Rallis sponsors the treatment of breast cancer and participates every year in the Rose Day celebrations held for cancer patients.
• Through TCCI, Rallis has undertaken projects to control malaria, leprosy and glaucoma.

Support and relief for the destitute
In 1999 Rallilove joined hands with the Pavement Club, an NGO-driven initiative that helps street children and functions from the premises of the Church of St Columbia (near Ralli House). Volunteers have been assisting the club for an hour every Friday. The children are offered medical aid, wholesome food, and a lot of attention. The experience has been so satisfying that it has since been extended to include weekend excursions for the kids

Uploaded in April 2002

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