Sterlite Copper has woven social responsibility into its business fabric right from its inception in 1996-97.
The company believes that business objectives should include overall development of communities around its surrounding areas. The aim has always been to go beyond mere ‘Corporate Social Responsibility’ to understand the real needs and genuine concerns of the people and provide the necessary stimulus to not only address these issues but ensure social involvement, acceptability and sustainability.
Sterlite Copper has identified eight areas in which to focus its Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) – Education, Health, Child Care, Women Empowerment, Infrastructure, Livelihood, Agriculture & Animal Husbandry and Employee Volunteerism.
As COVID-19 pandemic shook the world making daily life a fight for survival, Sterlite Copper and its employees intensified efforts to support the people of Thoothukudi.
Aim to plant 1 million trees across Thoothukudi, to make it one of the greenest cities and to bring about a rapid positive environment change. So far 1.16 lakh trees saplings have been planted.
A total of 16 villages have been covered under this initiative by providing tree saplings and sapling-shelters to villagers. The saplings will be taken care of for a period of 2 years until they can grow unsupervised on their own.
Ilam Mottukal, is one of our flagship project aims to improve enrolment and retention of girl children by ensuring quality education. Under this project, academic (Evening Study Centers after school hours which helps the students to understand and complete their subjects in a better environment), material (Kit consists of Uniforms, School Bag, Footwear, Undergarments, Notebooks, Dictionary and Other Stationeries) and social – moral support is reaching the girl children at government and aided schools in and around Thoothukudi.
Sterlite Scholastic Excellence Awards initiated with the objective to motivate the district toppers through cash awards and merit certificate to pursue outstanding in the due course of their educational career.
Educational Scholarship to various students has been provided to support the socio – economically backward and meritorious students to pursue higher education. This project has extended helping hand to many economically backward students to pursue higher studies. Under this project, orphanage students from 6th to 12th standard are been provided sponsorship regularly. These students are now able to acquire education without any hurdles and enjoy going school every day. Not only them, many students are now able to pursue courses in Engineering, Medicine, Arts, Science and various other fields because of the Scholarship.
Sterlite Copper has also launched a new scholarship initiative, ‘Sterlite Education Scheme for Students’ and so far 10,000+ students have benefitted. Under this project smart schools were built with the aim to provide quality education for the children in the core villages. The students have been given scholarships and are encouraged to pursue their education. A total of 20,000 families will benefit through this initiative.
Extending health care to the unreached population is the truism of any health services. Health on Wheels – a bus with team of professional doctors travels through the villages of Thoothukudi to provide free primary and secondary health care access benefitting 50,000 population covering 28 villages.
Special camps will be conducted on request basis and subjected to quarterly requirement. Additionally blood donation camp used to be conducted on world blood donation day and employees actively volunteer to donate their blood to the needy.
Aiming at providing state of the art healthcare facilities to the residents of Thoothukudi. Amidst the pandemic, Sterlite Copper extended its support to the people of nearby villages, covering 12,000 families by supplying ration kits, masks, sanitizers etc. Under the healthcare initiative free health consultation and medicines were provided to the residents of 21 core villages.
In line with the vision of the Chairman and with understanding the role of the younger generation in a community’s development, Sterlite Copper shed light on the growth and enhancement of children in the surrounding areas. To keep the records of the births and for holistic development of the infants our company commemorates the first birthday of the children and extending our support for the same. 200+ birthdays have celebrated for the past 3 years in the core villages and coastal areas.
Recognizing the need to empower women to contribute to socio- economic development of the country, “Sakhi” programme is taken up nationwide to build women through Self-Help Groups, increase supplementary income of their families, offer training to upgrade the skills of women for viable economic activities, create market linkages for economic activities of women SHGs and act as catalyst in linking resources between Government and Banks for their upliftment. 170 Self Help Groups with 21000 women in Thoothukudi are benefitted through this programme. Depending on the group’s interest, the income generation programs are identified and they are trained in livelihood skills like Aloe Vera Juice Making, Papadam Making, Tailoring, Beautician, Flour Sales, Sari Chamikki Works, Ornaments Making, Textile Sales, Floor Cleaner Making, Glass Paintings, Candle Making, etc. Sterlite also helps these people to showcase their products in various events. Additionally, holistic development training on entrepreneurial development is being provided for one year.
The objective of this initiative is to empower women through entrepreneurship and skill training. A total of 5000 women are set to benefit from the initiative through various entrepreneurial development programs like Training sessions on Bag stitching, Mushroom & Bee Cultivation and Sanitary Napkin Production. Sanitary Napkin Production Unit Launched with a daily capacity of 3150 napkins. After the successful completion of Phase 1 training a total of 49 women have been engaged in income generation projects.
Livelihood is one of the focus areas of Sterlite CSR to enhance the employability of the year since 2008 as “coastal livelihood project”. Now CLP has metamorphosed as Tamira Muthukal with the objective to mobilize, motivate and train unemployed, unskilled youth and facilitate suitable employment linkages within or outside the district. Three vocational training courses such as electrician, data entry operation cum tally and sewing machine operation are offered for the trainees. So far 298 youth have completed their training in 9 batches and 60% of the students employed.
Access to clean drinking water is an inalienable right of every human being and under this project clean drinking water is supplied to the people of Thoothukudi.A total of more than 2,300 families from 22 villages have benefitted from this project until today.36 liters of clean drinking water is distributed on alternate days to each family residing in the villages.
Conceptualized and instituted to provide assistance to the youth of Thoothukudi. The objective is to equip the youth of Thoothukudi with skills that will guarantee employment by providing the right training focusing on the 5 trades namely sewing machine operator, welding, general electrics, logistics and food processing. All of the aforementioned trades have been identified as priority areas via the Skill Gap Assessment Report of the National Skill Development Corporation (NSDC). Each course involves 300-400 hours of training, aiming to provide training to 600 youths, which will later be increased to 1500.
