Corporate Social Responsibility
Corporate Social Responsibility
- VLCC has a strong thrust in Corporate Social Responsibility (“CSR”) since 2001, when we instituted our charter in-house for CSR. Our CSR initiatives are focused on two themes – “Women empowerment” through financial independence and “Anti-Obesity” centred around raising awareness about the ills of being overweight and obesity and the importance of leading a healthy lifestyle.
- Woman empowerment has been at the core of our philosophy from inception. Started by a woman entrepreneur, employing 70.0% women, our focus has been on empowering women by equipping them with skills through scholarships or subsidized training at our Institutes to make them employable or pursue entrepreneurial opportunities, thereby achieving financial independence.
- Since 2008, we have been working in partnership with a non-governmental organization based in India, Kinship for Humanitarian Social and Holistic Intervention (“Khushii”) to provide vocational skills training to underprivileged women. We have also supported Khushii with their Swatantra Shikshaantra Tributary School in New Delhi, India, in which, along with remedial education, we provide nutrition and beauty culture knowledge and training.
- In addition to this, we have been partnering with the Central Government and State governments in India to support their skill-building initiatives by providing training at our Company operated Institutes under various schemes and initiatives. We are registered as a vocational training provider under the Skill Development Initiative Scheme with various State governments for providing training at our Institutes.
- Our other CSR focus area of Anti-Obesity initiatives is consonant with our core mission of enabling women and men to feel good, look good and get more out of life. Starting 2001, we began our Anti-Obesity Day™ initiative to raise global awareness about being over-weight or obesity and its ill-effects. The Anti-Obesity Day™ is observed on November 26th every year, as part of our annual campaign between November and December. Our anti-obesity campaign includes organizing health camps and mass counselling sessions, hosting talk shows with the health experts and disseminating special literature on obesity. We also collaborate with healthcare organizations and leading media in India and the GCC Region for this initiative, for example, on Anti-Obesity Day, 26th November 2019, as part of our commitment to the Government of India backed Fit India Mission, we organized a nation-wide walkathon, the flagship event of which was held in New Delhi and flagged off by Minister of State (Independent Charge), Ministry of Youth Affairs and Sports, Government of India.
- We have also been running an annual public service campaign, ‘Take the Orange Pledge: Stand Up India’, aimed at creating awareness about the need to live an active and healthy lifestyle. As of June 30, 2021 over 5.36 million people have clicked the orange button on our website, www.orangepledge.com, and symbolically taken the ‘Orange Pledge’, committing themselves to lead a healthier and more active lifestyle.