‘Vedanta’s campaign to help poor children gets wide support’

Bhubaneswar, Dec 15 (IANS) People from different walks of life have come forward to support a social media campaign launched by the Vedanta Group to help the country’s underprivileged children, a senior company official said Saturday.

“The spontaneous support the campaign has received is evident from the fact that its Facebook page has over 20,000 members,” Pavan Kaushik, head-corporate communication at Vedanta, told IANS.

The London-listed group, which is a global diversified metals and mining company, has launched the non-funding campaign ‘Khushi’ to encourage people to understand the problems of the poor children and take steps to find solutions.

Those who have registered themselves to support the cause include entrepreneurs, professors, doctors, engineers, students, management graduates and NGOs, he said.

Similarly, the ‘Vedanta Khushi’ blog uploads real stories of people who are contributing towards the development of poor children. “This has encouraged more participation by individuals,” he said.

“There is a serious need to create awareness among people in India. It is time to understand that government, companies or non-government organisations cannot do it alone. We all need to see what we can contribute at the individual level,” Kaushik said.

India has the largest children population in the world. The country is home to almost one-third of the world’s malnourished children and around eight million children in the age group of 5-14 years are engaged in work, he added.

The Vedanta Group has adopted 5,500 Anganwadi centres (state-run day-care centres) in Rajasthan, Odisha, Chattisgarh and Karnataka.

The centres offer poor children supplementary diet, regular health check-ups and education, Kaushik said.

Vedanta reached out to around 2.7 million people in 550 villages through its various initiatives, with an investment of Rs.1.8 billion last year (2010-11).

IANS 2012-12-15 14:34:11