‘We want to make them like us’ – Shamini Murugesh
— By | Aug 17, 2015 12:52 am
In her interview with Abhijit Mulye and Prakash Kulkarni, Shamini Murugesh, Chief Mentor of WNS Cares Foundation, the CSR arm of WNS, says their aim is to be able to touch the lives of underprivileged children and transform them to be just like us…
Please give us an overview of the foundation.
WNS Cares Foundation (WCF), set up in January 2011, is registered as a Company under Section 25 of the Indian Companies Act, 1956. WNS board of directors guide us and we run over 20 programs from WCF chapters spread across 22 cities internationally. We have presence in countries like Costa Rica, North America, Philippines, Romania, Poland, South Africa, Sri Lanka, UK apart from India where we cover 15 cities.
How were you oriented into this? Did you have any previous experience?
Yes. Previously also I had set up organisations which work for the underprivileged and has vast experience in creating sustainability programs. I’ve always felt that each of us has the power within us; the power to create an equitable society and my endeavour had always been to be able to lead people to be able to develop this faculty. When my husband Keshav Murugesh joined WNS as CEO, it automatically came to me that I should be working with the WCF. I work here voluntarily and on honorary basis.
How would you define the aims and objectives of your foundation?
To “Educate, Empower and Enrich” is what we have decided to be our mission. But, our aim is not just to reach out to the economically or socially weak recipients or what would generally be termed as the ‘beneficiaries’. It goes beyond and tries to reach the soul of the donor. That way for us even those of our employees who participate in the program too become beneficiaries of a different kind.
Why did you decide to focus on the education?
We see millions of children across the globe suffer due to lack of basic necessities every year. Caught in the web of poverty they survive in the most pitiable of conditions. There can be several ways to be able to influence their lives positively and there would be differences of opinion over how best one can influence others lives positively. Hence, at WNS we had conducted a Global Poll Survey with our employees giving them various options. 72% employees chose “Education” as a cause for the Foundation to support. In my personal opinion also, education is the best way for anyone to get rid of the desolation. So, for me it was easy to be part of the program.
What generally is the form of your programmes?
When we started working within the economically disadvantaged populations, we realised that the dated education system hits the children the most. The children are coerced into a disempowering thoughtless acceptance of the content of the syllabus and textbooks. The negative effects of such a top-down educational system are further compounded by lack of parental guidance and absence of an environment that encourages and supports questioning or critical thinking habits. Hence, tailor made projects and programs were developed for each of our international locations. We have academic programs like computer literacy, remedial education, spoken English, dictionary based activities ect. We also have non academic programs like in sports, arts, health. We have recently started with a program called e-mentoring, where our employees in developed countries like the US mentor under privileged students in India.
How do you go about executing the programs?
The common thread that runs through all the programs is to give every child an equal opportunity in this world. We aim at bridging the gap between school, parents and children. Most of the underprivileged children are first generation school goers. This means that the parents are not in a position to give any support from home as they themselves under pressure for their daily work to ensure provision of next meal to their family. This is where the WCF steps in. We identify needy schools in the vicinity of its office locations. After conducting a need assessment of the school we set up Libraries or Computer Centers or both in these schools. We also invest in beautification of the Computer Labs to make the environment more friendly, warm, welcoming and conducive to children’s learning.
Do you get all these things done through paid workers?
No. The focus of CSR at WCF is also to engage the employees in every project that we support. We do hire some workers, but most of the things are done by our employees voluntarily. Our aim is to create awareness on critical issues to sensitize staff and provide opportunities for significant participation in response to community needs. We appeal WNS employees to donate one hour every month for the WCF activities. We also empower the school teachers so that in absence of the volunteers, the program does not hamper. But, to inculcate the habit of giving amongst the students is the essential thing that we emphasise more upon. The employees may choose to come early to office once a month or go directly to the chosen school after the office hours. Sometimes they also work when they have weekly off.
How would you summarise the impact of the program?
It is our endeavour to ensure that all our efforts are directed at confidence building and providing life skills learning to the children on our program so that they can blossom into educated, empowered, responsible and confident adults. In terms of numbers, we can say that till the beginning of this year, we had touched 84215 lives, had 27666 volunteering hours, covered 174 schools, developed 37 libraries etc. But, the sheer joy WNS employees get out of the habit of giving is what I think the most fulfilling measure to count our success and we can boast that we have a 200% ROI in this aspect. Recently, we had some kids from Ramabai Ambedkar Nagar in Ghatkopar visiting our office at Vikroli. One of the girls, when asked what she wants to be when she is grown up, she instantaneously said, she wants to be like one of our volunteers who often goes to that school. A countless number of such experiences too reassure us that we are on the right path, where we would like to make “them” like “us”.
No comments:
Post a Comment