Toyota’s Unique Approach to Curb Open Defecation Recognized Under “Swachh Bharat” Award Category

Toyota Kirloskar Motor (TKM) was recently felicitated with the distinguished Bureaucracy Today - CSR Excellence Award 2017 recognizing its outstanding contributions in the area of Health and Hygiene. The company received the award in the ‘Swachh Bharat Initiatives’ category for their admirable efforts towards eradication of Open Defecation (OD) from the country through its unique CSR campaign – Project ABCD (A Behavioral Change Demonstration).

Initiated as a part of Toyota’s active efforts towards the “Swachh Bharat campaign”, Project ABCD was rolled out in the year 2015 aiming to provide sanitation facilities for girl children in schools in the local neighborhood community and to drive a positive behavioral change among the students and the community on healthy sanitation practices. Strongly driven with a mission to achieve 100% sanitation in Government schools, the project strives to instill good hygiene habits among the individuals, providing infrastructure support through building of new sanitation units (situated near Toyota plant) in Karnataka. 

Under this project, we have touched the lives of people through a sustainable difference at large:

·         Nearly 724 sanitation units for girl child at schools have been constructed till date and 27,370 school children have been benefitted through such sanitation infra support

·         Through school children, awareness reached out to 119,737 members creating a healthier local community

·         As a resultant, this project witnessed the community initiating independent self-construction of the sanitation units with 1366 nos. in 2015-16 & 2755 nos. in 2016-17 (individual household units), successfully leading to 74 villages being declared 100% sanitation

The project employs a unique “Child to Community” approach, where children motivate their parents to possess individual household sanitation unit thereby becoming the change agents to bring desirable transformation in the community.

Handing over the award to Toyota, Bhaskar Chatterjee, IAS - Chairman, BT-CSR Excellence Awards Committee, said “My heartiest congratulations to Toyota Kirloskar Motor for their commendable efforts undertaken under the purview of ‘Swachh Bharat’.  It is commendable to see Corporates voluntarily reaching out to citizens in far flung areas to bring about necessary transformation at local level towards healthy and clean living. Toyota, as a responsible corporate citizen, have given great significance to CSR, in line with social philosophy which indeed shows the company’s commitment to bring the real difference in the lives of the community.”

Expressing his delight on receiving the award, Naveen Soni, Vice President - Toyota Kirloskar Motor said, “It is indeed an honor to receive this prestigious award, and encouraging to see our initiative that we started two years ago with a vision to curb one of the grave concerns faced by our country – Open Defecation recognized. According to studies, of the 1.1 billion people in the world who defecate in the open, 59% live in India, and 67% of rural Indian households still do not have access to proper sanitation facilities.

At Toyota, all our CSR efforts are designed & channelized to improve the overall quality of life of the community at large. We want to ensure that the initiatives we are undertaking will have far reaching and deep impact to ensure good health of the citizens. While implementing the Project ABCD,our primary objective was not only to build the sanitation infrastructure, but inculcate the right attitude, raising awareness motivating the societal members to discontinue age old unhygienic practices. The success of the project was when the community members developed a sense of ownership and responsibility leading to a positive social movement. Under ABCD project, we are aiming to support 100% household sanitation in Ramanagara district to achieve an Open Defecation Free community”, he added.

As a socially committed corporate, Toyota has actively contributed towards the “Swacch Bharat Abhiyan”. The company has constructed 724 units of sanitation facilities in 193 government schools across India [Ramnagara in Karnataka, Varanasi in UP, Vaishali in Bihar].

Through an all-embracing CSR campaign, Toyota in India has constantly worked towards harmonious, scalable and sustainable development by emphasizing on Education, Health & Hygiene, Road Safety, Environment and Skill Development.

The award organized by Bureaucracy Today witnessed participation from over 300 corporates across 36 categories that included the Swachh Bharat, Skill India, Women Empowerment, Eradicating Poverty and Promotion of Healthcare. The prestigious award recognizes corporates’ efforts to build positive and bring in sustainable changes in the society at large.