At
HSBC, it is our global mandate to work in two
areas - Education and the Environment.
Education for us differs from country to country.
Perhaps, in the developed world, education means
improving mathematic skills or improving primary
education. Education in India means employability;
awareness and knowledge to become entrepreneurial.
So, the projects that we support at HSBC really
work towards helping young people become employable
or become entrepreneurs. HSBC supports various
programs which work in this space.
For example, for young people we support ‘Yuva
Parivatan’ in Mumbai. As name the suggests,
this program supports and gives young people a
second chance for education .i.e. to complete
their primary education and later for vocational
training.
Another program is ‘CAP’
(the CAP Foundation), a similar program in Hyderabad.
CAP helps people to complete their schooling,
and then go into vocational training. This
helps them become employable in the emerging economic
sectors of our country.
LABS is a similar program that we supported
in Pune - this has helped young people from backward
communities to finish their schooling and become
part of the work force in the country.
We are aware that as an individual corporation,
we cannot change the entire world. However our
steps in synchronicity with those of other corporates
and other like
minded organisations will actually help to make
a difference towards the employability of people
in our country.
Education must actually have a purpose and that
purpose should really be the end objective.For
education is to help the young individual to be
able to stand on their own, realise their aims,
to learn about good values and a positive attitude.All
of which will help them to contribute to the country
and its economy.
In addition to young people, our other focus area
is rural women. We have supported a project that
is in fact path breaking. In Satara District,
we have supported the world’s first business
school for rural women, Mann Deshi Udyogini.
This school helps and prepares women who are going
to take micro finance loans to become sensitive
to their responsibility of borrowing money and
returning it in time. They are also empowered
with the knowledge of how to benefit from the
money they borrow. Click
here for next question
