KORBA, 23rd February : Bharat Aluminium Company Limited (BALCO), India’s iconic aluminium producer and a subsidiary of Vedanta Aluminium, helped spread joy to the families living in its vicinity recently through its annual Wish Tree Campaign. Now in its second edition, the initiative is focused on bringing joy to children from economically challenged families in the local community by collecting their gift wishes and fulfilling them through the generosity of BALCO’s employee volunteers.
The Wish Tree initiative received an overwhelming response again this year, with over 400 wishes collected from the community. More than 200 BALCO employees came forward to bring these earnest wishes to reality, while the Ladies Club of BALCO also volunteered their time and resources to fulfil the collected wishes. Simple but important gifts such as pencil boxes, clothing, schoolbags and others were distributed to the children as per their age and expressed needs.
The campaign also had a special focus on fulfilling the wishes of specially abled children from Divya Jyoti School and Baal Grah (Child Care Home). The Wish Tree Campaign has become a yearly tradition at BALCO, reaffirming the company’s commitment to making a positive impact on the lives of its surrounding community members. Through its community development initiatives, BALCO is actively transforming the lives of around 1.5 lakh people living within 123 villages lying in its operational vicinity.
Speaking about the initiative, Mr. Rajesh Kumar, CEO and Director, BALCO, said, “At BALCO, we are dedicated to making a positive impact in the lives of our local communities through our community development programs. Our employees have always shown a strong commitment to giving back and supporting those in need. This initiative is a proud representation of our commitment to making a difference. BALCO believes in enabling each individual in the community with the resources they need to empower themselves, and our various community development programs are therefore consistently aligned to the larger vision for shared progress”.
In addition to the Wish Tree initiative, BALCO’s employees are also supporting the community with quality education opportunities through Project Connect. Initiated in the year 2016, Project Connect aims at supplementing the community’s need for quality education especially in Science, English, Mathematics and Accountancy (SEMA) through field instructors and volunteers from amongst BALCO’s employees. The project focuses on improving the learning ecosystem in government schools by creating an enabling environment for improving students’ grades, capacity building of teachers and career counselling, through employee volunteerism. More than 2500 students, between classes 9-12 have benefitted from regular and remedial classes.
BALCO’s success in community development has been recognized through accolades such as the ICC Social Impact award, SABERA Award 2021 & 2022, the prestigious Mahatma Award 2022 for CSR excellence, and the Best CSR initiative award on Menstrual Health management for their project Nayi Kiran at 3rd MHM India Summit 2023.
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