The Agenda of the Summit was to Focus on how to use a Comprehensive Approach to Create Effective Sustainable CSR Strategies
Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) has emerged as a significant theme in the Indian business community. In order to deepen the understanding about CSR, its challenges and opportunities, India's leading child rights NGO, CRY- Child Rights and You, organised a corporate responsibility summit across India to provide a platform for major CSR players to define and drive their CSR strategies
In its 4th year, the CSR summit travelled through Bengaluru and Mumbai and culminated in Delhi. Master class session in Delhi was focused on how to communicate and market CSR to drive and support corporate goals, articulating long term CSR strategy, impact measurement and reporting.
The Master class in Delhi was facilitated by Prof. Vasanthi Srinivasan and Mr. Manoj Chakravarti from the Centre for Corporate Governance and Citizenship, Indian Institute of Management, Bangalore.
The summit also saw the presentation of 3rd Child Rights Champion award to recognise the journey of a corporation's social responsibility initiative. The jury for the awards deliberated on the vision, policies, significance of initiatives, impact and sustainability of CSR strategies of different corporations. SRF limited won the Child Rights Champion award for working on the holistic development of 23,000 students and 2,500 out of school children from poor and backward communities by ensuring the implementation of the RTE Act across 100 government schools, across 6 states focusing on the aspect of quality delivery of education, girl education, skill development and computer education.
Mr. Suresh Reddy, Director - SRF Foundation, on receiving the award, said, "We are honoured to receive this award. SRF's social responsibility program believes in quality education and training that inspires children and youth from all sections of society to achieve individual aspirations and build a better society for tomorrow, through knowledge, skills and values."
A panel discussion followed the awards ceremony on the topic of 'Seeding Sustainability' in business strategy and operations, with sustainability experts like Mr. Shankar Venkateswaran- Chief, Tata Sustainability Group, Ms. Namrata Rana- Director, Futurescape and Ms. Maneesha Chadha- Head - Corporate Citizenship at Citibank India.
Anita Bala Sharad, Director, Resource Generation, CRY - Child Rights and You said, "Our experience of working with organisations for more than 30 years in child rights space inform us that whenever there is a deep commitment from corporates to work on children's issues, the benefits are long-term and sustainable. We hope to take this opportunity and craft out their CSR strategies with a long term vision and play an active role is solving issues that face us as a society."
