HCL Foundation spent close to INR 195 Cr on its various initiatives in financial year 2020-21 with women empowerment initiatives being a major part of its overall agenda. According to the organization, almost 60% beneficiaries across programmes last year were women and girls. In this interview with TheCSRUniverse, Ms. Nidhi Pundhir, Director, HCL Foundation talks about various women-focused initiatives taken by the organization especially in the areas of education, health and skill development. Scroll down to read the full interview:
Q: Please tell us about your initiatives in recent years toward the cause of women empowerment.
A: All our CSR initiatives target the most marginalized communities. Keeping in mind equity and inclusion, we pay special attention to women, girls and people with disability. Our projects are aligned with Global SDGs (sustainable development goals) and national missions. Aligned to SDG 5, gender and inclusion cuts across all themes and programmes.
Currently we are present in 118 districts across 21 states and 3 union territories of India. Since 2016, we have transformed the lives of almost 3 million people and a majority of beneficiaries are girls and women. In absolute numbers, we work with over 1.5 million women and girls across rural and urban communities of India.
Our women empowerment projects focus on strengthening women collectives such as women self-help groups and we train them in various income generating activities and entrepreneurship development. Our output indicators include the number of women SHGs formed, number of women mobilized, improvement in their income, savings, loan repayment track record, bank loan linkages and so on. We have programs for their education, nutrition, health, family planning and family well-being.
Q: How much of the CSR budget is set aside for women-based projects at HCL Foundation?
A: Budget planning is a serious exercise at HCL Foundation. As inclusion and women empowerment runs as a crosscutting theme across programmes and themes, each theme budgets for this component. Over and above that, we also have a separate budget that is set aside for gender projects. In FY 20-21, the CSR spent of HCL Foundation was INR 195 Cr. Almost 60% beneficiaries across programmes were women and girls.
Q: Most of the organizations focus on providing skill development only in micro-entrepreneurial ventures like handicraft, art and beauty related ventures (beauticians/ hairdressers). There is a need to expose them to alternative and more ambitious career choices too. How can this be achieved?
A: Our overall objective with the skill development and entrepreneurship programs is developing the human capital. We believe in providing access to knowledge, technical know-how, and skills that help girls and women achieve their aspirations and realize their full potential. Though we provide livelihood and skill development training in micro-entrepreneurial ventures and will continue to do so in a big way, we also have programs to support women to pursue alternative and ambitious career choices.
One of our projects for women termed as ‘Women Skillpreneurship Development Program’ aims to provide both skills and entrepreneurial inputs about business opportunities, access to finance, training in business planning, and scaling up business and operations. HCL Foundation helps them to adopt new technology and digital business.
The objective is to equip them to start their own institutions by providing them access to finance and capacity to expand their skills, enterprises and assets. The exposure to these services and ventures helps them launch their career in nontraditional areas. To excel in their venture, knowledge of modern education is important. The My Scholar program invests in innovative and technology-led education for them to explore many sustainable career options in diverse fields. With the support of such coordinated training and inputs, several women have set leading examples and their success stories are inspiration for others.
There are women entrepreneurs who make face masks on a large scale. To add further, there are innovative businesses that have huge potential to scale up. There is a fast-growing brand in chocolate and snack products made from multivitamin millets set up by one of our collectives. To make all the products market ready, HCL Foundation has recently launched a special initiative called “My E-Haat” which is digital marketplace for artisans to connect with the market all over the country. All our Self-Help Groups are major stakeholder under this initiative & getting direct connect to the customer experience which creates sustainable source of income for women.
HCL Foundation always adopts the market trends and helps to identify the latest technology/domains which paves the way for future.
Q: What mechanisms do you apply to ensure that the end beneficiary is the woman herself?
A: We have a very structured process of monitoring and evaluation. Our teams work closely with partners to ensure that the benefits of all programmes reach directly to the intended beneficiary. Regular interactions are held with the end beneficiaries. HCL Foundation is very closely connected with the communities where it works and constantly engages in dialogues with them. Field monitoring teams, audit teams as well as external evaluators visit the field regularly to collate the lists and records with the reality on ground.
Q: What are your initiatives towards easy access to healthcare needs of women?
A: Our interventions target areas like food and nutrition, hygiene and healthcare that are critical for the physical development and psychological well-being of girls and women. We run nutrition camps that are home based. This means families do not have to come to our camps, but our experts go to the families.
Besides, it is not just the supply of nutritious food but also helping women raise vegetable gardens, and cook nutritious meals following hygienic practices. In our country, one in two women are anemic and therefore, our nutrition programs are designed keeping this in mind. To avoid the risk, we follow a life cycle approach and support existing government mechanisms. We also organize programmes for reproductive health and family planning for women to make informed choices and use modern contraceptive methods. The counseling programs help them understand the importance of birth spacing and reducing family size to ensure quality of life and well-being.
Q: Most of the initiatives, especially by large corporations, are primarily focused on uplifting rural women, leaving aside a major chunk of the urban poor. How should CSR become more inclusive of the needs of this chunk?
A: Our CSR investments are planned and cover rural as well as urban geographies. HCL Uday works to break the cycle of urban poverty. We focus on women - especially young girls from difficult circumstances and women engaged in the urban informal sector. These are domestic workers and home workers. We also provide positive reinforcement to urban unemployed women to identify their true potential and become employed through appropriate vocation and formation of women collectives. We have programmes for the capacity building of underprivileged minority women and women living in difficult circumstances. Another important group we reach out to is semiskilled, migrant population and school dropout women.
Q: How important is it for social sector stakeholders to sensitize each other, and the public in general toward the women community? What are your initiatives towards that?
A: Awareness and sensitization programs are very important for the kind of social transformation we are hoping to achieve. We also run campaigns to create positive behavioral change among men toward girls and women. We create awareness on the rights and the importance of women’s contribution to family and community. Daddy Cool is one such unique campaign. It encourages positive engagement of fathers in their child’s early learning and overall development. This helps ensure fathers engagement with their child in the early years.
My Worth is another successful initiative in this regard that is striving to mainstream gender equality within school systems. Through this initiative, we crate peer leaders. So far over 300 girls are trained to take up leadership roles in schools. They create deeper conversations among other students about gender discrimination, gender-based violence, child marriage, menstrual hygiene, and sexual and reproductive rights. We also conduct sensitization programmes for families to improve enrollment of girls in schools, reduce dropout rates, intervene in cases of gender-based violence and child marriage.
