Struggling with CSR Activities in Semi-Urban Areas: Any Suggestions for a Newbie?

I am new to CSR jobs, and all my colleagues are based in rural areas where they are doing extremely well in CSR. However, the industry where I am working is situated in a city, and all the operational villages are semi-urban areas. I am really facing lots of problems in figuring out what kind of activities I can do here. Can you please suggest something?

Hello friend,

Please look around and think, and you will get many ideas for serving society. Just go and visit some schools in your area, whether semi-urban or not, and you will notice opportunities to improve the quality of drinking water for school children. If you organize an eye check-up, you will notice that 10% of students have eyesight problems. If your company can do something for the school children, it will be a worthy cause.

Of course, you will first need to identify the needs of the society around you. Second, consider the role your organization wants to play. Based on this, you can prepare an action plan.

Another example - in cities, you may see the difficulties faced by a lady driving a 2-wheeler when her vehicle stops in the middle of the road. She is helpless and feels embarrassed. The College of Engineering Pune was sensitive to this issue, and they organized a special training session for ladies to gain knowledge about different 2-wheelers and how to handle such situations. They taught techniques to troubleshoot and rectify simple problems. The training sessions were conducted by expert mechanics of 2-wheelers, and there was an overwhelming response to the initiative.

Regards,

Nishikant

We are a not-for-profit organization working to promote responsible business practices - CSR initiatives - in urban and rural areas.

Our areas of expertise lie in:

- Consulting and advisory services for CSR: Strategizing, implementing, and documenting CSR initiatives
- Conducting studies such as impact assessment, community need assessment (CNA), livelihood assessment, stakeholder mapping, benchmarking, etc.
- Promoting Cross-Sector Partnerships, conducting NGO due diligence
- Capacity building of different stakeholders on CSR, cross-sector partnerships, etc.

Please contact us if you are looking for advice on initiating CSR activities or adding value to ongoing CSR initiatives.