Is Education The Only Way To Make A Better World?

Giving doesn’t anymore remain just a charitable act, at least, for the corporate India. The new Companies Act, 2013 mandates that companies spend 2 percent of their net profit on the Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR).

While this will lead to an estimated CSR spending in India running over a whopping US$2000 million annually, what is more crucial to bringing a meaningful result-oriented change in this philanthropy paradigm is a sincere sense of responsibility towards human development.

Fortunately, for this country- which otherwise is besieged with a diverse set of problems plaguing the prospects of social inclusion- a few corporates have already been showing the way, the rest must emulate.

While much knowledge of the large-hearted CSR activities of  global companies, headquarted in India,  which is already in public domain, for helping the  noble practice  prosper, it’s time India finds out, acknowledges and encourages the other lesser known  but sincere ‘Givers’.

Meet one of them, working silently from the last many years, without blowing any trumpets to the external world. The silent but mighty- WNS Cares Foundation. For Shamini Murugesh, the Honorary Chief Mentor of WNS Cares Foundation, the philanthropic arm of the business process management giant WNS (Holdings) Limited, spending on community development is not forced but spontaneous.

A scribe-turned –writer-model – turned humanitarian, who contributed for Business Standard and several other publications, Shamini has been able to turn some great tides impacting the social deficit, not just within India but globally.

Within a span of just couple of years, WNS Cares Foundation has impacted the education of close to 40,000 underprivileged children living in communities across the globe around its campuses through effective CSR activities.

Wife of Keshav Murugesh, the group CEO of WNS is jointly responsible for creating a sustainable organisation where employees could interact with each other outside the work environment. Her high-point, however, lies in the fact that she had been naturally inclined towards doing her bit for ‘inclusion’ ever since she was a child.

She realised in the very beginning that education is a common requirement across the globe and with WNS’ global presence, it could be the universal denominator that can be leveraged for the foundation’s objectives.

She also realized early that empowering underprivileged children’s education through libraries, computer centres, volunteering to be role models and teaching them the real life skills will expand their horizons and was a replicable model universally.

In fact, when the idea of creating a concerted CSR program for WCF came up, an employee poll was undertaken at the company. The poll feedback reflected clearly that education was the most important cause that could be supported. “I have always been clear that we are not here to do charity but we just help children help themselves,” she says.  

WCF’s long time focus on education is also in sync with the government’s emphasis as under one of the revised schedule on CSR under the new Companies Act, ‘education’ figures as one of the prominent issues alongside healthcare, gender equality, environmental sustainability and rural development that are critical for inclusive growth. WCF also laid emphasis on the qualitative man-hours that could be extracted from the volunteers and not funds.

“To a lot of donors of money to WCF, some of whom were my friends, I asked to become a volunteer and help the cause through their time. It’s easy to contribute money but any CSR activity can be sustained only if along with money, volunteers join you and stick to their stated commitments towards the community,” she underlines.

Shamini, who holds an M Phil in economics from Madras University moved from Kolkata with husband Keshav to Mumbai in 2002 when he had just left his job at ITC and joined Syntel Ltd. 

At Syntel (again as a chief mentor) she helped create S’Prayas, an organisation that worked with children providing education solutions. She effectively used S’Prayas to motivate Syntel employees to interact outside the office and also impact positively many young children.