This week wrap up - Ludhiana Steel Rolling Mills - IBM CSC subteam

That was our second week in Ludhiana  .we are middle of our CSC program - and to be honest with you, the time has past so that quickly with us.
Now I would like to summarize what has happened with me and with the team during this week.

As I explained to you in my blog (14th Feb) our project is to focus on girl children education and especially on those who were some how dropped out from school or never attended because of several reasons and also to understand those girl children who are willing to learn, but due to the poverty in her family,  she cannot go to school.

In terms of our methodology (data gathering phase) we surveyed 40 families, went to 5 family visits up till now and made an employee focus group discussion also 2 focus group interviews with other NGO's in Ludhiana who are involved with education programs.

One of them was Swabhimaan a great NGO with lot of experiences also a clear vision on their expansion program and opportunities.

Mr Sanjay in the middle explains about his vision

A group photo from all of us, I hope that was just a begining within the 2 companies

The main outcome was from that discussion that they were pleased to hear that a company from Ludhiana's industrial area came up with this CSR study, and they would like to focus on education. As they mentioned LSRM will have the power to collect from other companies also their children and educate them. What can be interesting as not only to provide education for the families girl children, but there are big potentials for the mothers also. We made a survey and most of the employee's  wife are very welcome to join a vocational program or a work based training.

Focus Group discussion at HR office LSRM

3rd family in scope

4th family in the program

Anneliese tried to ask from the mother what will be her need in terms of her children education

On Wednesday we had a chance to visit one (or the) biggest NGO who focus on children education with key focus on girl children education especially. The NGO name is BHARTI Foundation. Their program is clear and well structured and focusing on education, especially full support school facilities, but more you can read about them under this site: Bharti Satya Schools
I hope LSRM could pick up some good project steps what we heared from Bharti and they can implement into their CSR activity. Thanks for Bharti as they shared with us their professionalism.

Thursday was the day when we finished the data gathering stage and we visited our 5th family as last. I have never seen such a poverty where they live, as they are living just in a rooftop and imagine that under them a factory is operating, and every where in the surrounding lot of factories with incredible big noise and smog.
According to the LSRM  CSR objective they would like to provide education for all of their employees children and especially they would like to motivate the girl children.
With my colleague Anneliese we felt that this family is worth to have the best opportunity out of this program as they are poor but fulfilled with lot of joy and happiness. SMILING is very important for them and of course we SMILE-d back to them. We just simply enjoyed the 1 hour what we could have spent with them.

Anneliese interviewing the oldest girl child

All of us together with this lovely family

Time to say goodbye now and get prepared myself for Shimla trip as we
- 8 members from the IBM CSC team -  will spend the whole weekend in the foot of the Himalaya's, will post you soon!

#ibmcsc india22