Lifeis CSR - A Start at Indira Gandhi International Academy

An important part of business life of every respectable company is the Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) program. “As a worldwide industry existing in more than 150 countries with retail sales of $109 billion in 2006 and 58 million independent direct sellers, the direct selling industry takes its responsibility for good global citizenship very seriously. Our commitment to good citizenship is expressed in our giving back to people around the world and to the communities where we live and work. Four in five direct selling companies (82 percent) sponsor or support corporate social responsibility activities (CSR).” These are the words from “The Global Citizenship of the Direct Selling Industry” by World Federation of Direct Selling Associations. We do participate in direct selling industry, thus we consider CSR as integral part of our business strategy.

Helping less fortunate is an integral part of Earthstone Holdings, - the business endeavor that is managed by Lifeis Founder and Chairman, Mr. Pankaj N. Shah. Thus, CSR is integrated into our business strategy; Lifeis has worked out a number of CSR programs. Despite the pre-launch phase of our corporate development, we have already started some of them – and this Sunday we initiated a long-standing relationship with Indira Gandhi International Academy in Bangalore. We took opportunity to visit the Academy when they have celebrated 6-year old girl’s Birthday.

The Indira Gandhi International Academy was established in 1990 with the goal of provision of education to the children of Sri Lanka. Basically they stay for 10 months in a year; while many of them simply have no one to return to. Currently there are 350+ kids of various age (5 to 21), many of them are orphans or their families are misplaced with no chance to contact them.

First that surprised us was that all children are very nicely dressed in clean clothes, and the territory of Academy is well taken care of. Indeed, when I was told that we are going to visit a ‘refugee camp’ I was anticipating seeing some sort of slums – but this is not the case. This is a great achievement of the management of Academy. Of course, kids are kids, but I was ready to see dejected and depressed – but, once again, they seem to be happy.

We went over the dormitories and classrooms, participated in a birthday party, had lunch with the children, but what was the most stirring part – informal interaction.
One of us was revealing the secrets of cricket to boys,
while the others were singing and dancing…
We also chatted with one of the best graduates – A. Muralidhasan – a boy whose family location is unknown – and now he is facing all the cruelty of adult world. Lifeis decided to look into the future and try to arrange some opportunities for this talented boy.
Some of us donated cash, and the Management decided to help improve infrastructure of the classes – as soon as we can do this.


You may look at all photos from our visit at our Flickr Page – click HERE