Ambuja Foundation Bhatapara, Chhattisgarh recently won the award for Best CSR in the Health Category at the Impactful CSR Award of Metropolis Healthcare Heroes of India Awards 2022.

Ambuja Foundation’s SEDI team recently launched an Alumni Chapter in order to provide support to SEDI students - even after placement. This initiative was conceptualized to provide additional support to SEDI alumni who are placed outside their own geographies, by creating a community of alumni’s in the area.

“I used live an ordinary life – catching a few fish from the shores of my village. But one day I came across a relative of mine, who was returning from a big fishing expedition. He was a contractor for a boat owner and told me stories of catching hauls in a single trip worth 1lakh.

“I was one of 7 children and growing up, there were many days where my parents couldn’t provide even one meal for us all. So at the age of 10, my father sent me to Baishnabnagar to work as a child labourer on a dairy farm.

"My heart used to weep seeing my husband struggling to earn a decent income from his crop. And it wasn’t just him. The local moneylenders and middlemen were making farmers’ lives in our village miserable. I wanted to help, but how? I had never even stepped out of the house ever before!

Ambuja Foundation has once again been certified as a Great Place to Work in the Non- Profits & Charity Organization. Ambuja Foundation has proved to rank high in the High-Trust and High-Performance Culture which has made it seamless to bag this certification.

Aiming to equip rural youth with skills for livelihoods, Ambuja Foundation, working in rural livelihood and youth employment, has joined hands with Sir Mathuradas Vissanji Education Trust to upgrade its automotive training program. The Education Trust has upgraded the skill training infrastructure in four of its Skill & Entrepreneurship Development Institutes (SEDI) locations including Chhindwara (Madhya Pradesh), Jaitaran (Rajasthan), Sanand (Gujarat) and Farakka (West Bengal). This partnership focuses on advancement of the existing automotive training centres with BS6 technology labs and an upgrade of curriculum as per the market demand, to help improve the employability of trainees.

Ambuja Foundation has partnered with Godrej Agrovet Ltd to create income opportunities and support livelihoods via the ‘Grameen Vikas Project’ across 6 villages of Bundi, Rajasthan and 8 villages of Tilda, Raipur , Chhattisgarh - impacting a population of more than 28,000+ people. The project will provide necessary skills, expertise, infrastructure and training for the community to strengthen agro-based livelihoods, whilst leveraging government schemes, empowering women by strengthening SHGs and training youth in vocational skills.

At just 18 years of age, Beant is no stranger to social work. She got her first taste of it at the age of 11 as an Adolescent Peer Educator, and was hooked! As the primary driver of Ambuja Foundation’s Women Empowerment Programme in her community, Beant is a busy teen – juggling social work duties, studies in Tally, household chores and of course – all important time with friends!

Hem Raj, a 37 year old farmer, faced one big obstacle in his farming enterprise – getting his produce to market! With no road out of his village, the only way to sell goods, was to ‘walk it out’ – loading produce into baskets that they lugged up hills to the nearest bus stand. It was back breaking work and by the time they reached the market, produce was severely damaged.

The women of Bhadrapali mean business. Once restricted to their homes, today every woman in the community is an SHG member, and earns their own income. This ‘women’s movement’ has caused a wave of change, with the women transforming the community into a ‘Model Village’. Juggling a multitude of tasks, these women are a force to be reckoned with!

In Chirawa, Rajasthan, most of the women are bound to their homes, with families bestowing the responsibility for earning an income on the men of the house. But 19-year-old Monu decided to buck the trend by pursuing a career in Food & Beverage.