Niyati Sareen is the Project Director (Water & Education) at Hinduja Foundation, which partners with Ambuja Foundation via its group companies, IndusInd Bank, and Ashok Leyland. and Hinduja Leyland Finance. She found her calling in life when she was asked to Head CSR & Sustainability at a large infrastructure development organization, and from there went on to join the Hinduja Foundation.

“When I joined as principal of Zilla Parishad School in Pimpalgaon in 2013, children from the community were mostly going to faraway schools for education. Teachers were even waiting to get their transfer orders and shift to other schools.

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.

With successful implementation of its Holistic Rural Development Program (HRDP) in rural Uttarakand, HDFC Bank Parivartan extended its partnership with Ambuja Foundation to the Patiala district of Punjab. The 4-year project will cover 15 villages of Rajpura and Sambhu blocks of Patiala district, with focused interventions on agro-based livelihood, women empowerment, health & sanitation and quality education.

Chinmay Jain is the Cluster Coordinator at Ambuja Foundation and has been instrumental in driving Ambuja Foundation’s partnership with Hindustan Zinc Limited (HZL) on the ground in Rajasthan. Built on a foundation of trust, the collaborative partnership is producing outstanding results in the area of skill development in remote pockets around Udaipur, and is now set to make waves in the area of Water Conservation, as the partnership expands. Chinmay shares the journey, key challenges and the bright future ahead

The inspiring stories of Ambuja Foundation’s beneficiaries have been captured in a stunning coffee table book format – highlighting their perseverance and ‘unstoppable’ drive in pursuing their livelihoods and passions.

Ambuja Foundation has partnered with Asian Paints to enhance the livelihood of 4.2 lakh individuals in nine villages in Visakhapatnam through water and health initiatives. As part of Asian Paints CSR initiative, Ambuja Foundation acts as an implementing partner for this project to revive water bodies, install water filtration systems and create awareness among the community on judicious utilisation of water resources and health and hygiene for the next two years.

Under the Gramya Vikas Nidhi – Sanction, Ambuja Foundation was provided grant assistance from NABARD (National Bank for Agriculture and Rural Development) for implementing the ‘Employability through Skill Initiative Project