Category: Education

To mark the Children’s Day, Canon India in partnership with Cinepolis Group organised a special screening of a 3D movie ‘The Lion King’ on November 14 for children of all the four adopted villages in Haryana, West Bengal, Maharashtra and Karnataka. The movie was screened in four adopted villages

To mark the Children’s Day, Canon India in partnership with Cinepolis Group organised a special screening of a 3D movie ‘The Lion King’ on November 14 for children of all the four adopted villages in Haryana, West Bengal, Maharashtra and Karnataka.

The movie was screened in four adopted villages — Maheshwari in Haryana, Sol Gohalia in Kolkata, Karanjoti in Mumbai and Maharaja Katte in Bangalore — as part of its CSR initiative ‘Learning Beyond Books’ which aims to offer experiential learning beyond homes and school boundaries.

The Lion King, a movie symbolic of wisdom, courage and compassion, is packed with unforgettable life lessons, extremely crucial for the children to learn to succeed in their future endeavours.

Speaking on the occasion, Canon India President and CEO Kazutada Kobayashi said: “At Canon, we strongly believe in leading by our corporate philosophy of ‘Kyosei’, through which we align our business objectives with our sustainability initiatives.”

He said education and empowerment form two intrinsic pillars of its “4Es CSR policy” and with children as the building blocks of any society, the aim is to implement maximum efforts to ensure their holistic development.

‘Learning Beyond Books’ is one such initiative through which the company intends to empower children from our adopted villages, to carve a brighter and better tomorrow, he added.

Cinepolis India Deputy CEO Devang Sampat said, “We believe that cinema is one such alternate way that has the power to influence and empower the masses. It gave us immense pleasure to join hands with Canon India.”

Canon’s CSR endeavours are driven by their corporate philosophy of ‘Kyosei’, which mean the ‘spirit of living and working together for the common good’.

The company is involved in various community welfare programs aligned with their 4Es CSR policy implying Education, Eye Care, Environment and Empowerment, in an effort to build progressive self-reliant communities.

Through their flagship ‘Adopt a Village’ project, Canon has four adopted villages across the country, focusing on the overall development of the village communities with a major focus on 4Es.

Eldis – Impact and Policy team at the Institute of Development Studies in the UK has come out with a study that discusses the role of business in the fight against HIV and AIDS with a particular focus on the private sector in India

Eldis – Impact and Policy team at the Institute of Development Studies in the UK has come out with a study that discusses the role of business in the fight against HIV and AIDS with a particular focus on the private sector in India. The report highlights particular interventions by Indian five companies ranging from advocacy and education to prevention and treatment.

Further, the report argues that because a large share of the country’s HIV-positive population are employed by Indian industry, businesses can gain from early decisive action to prevent HIV and AIDS. The paper also shows the advantages businesses bring to the fight, and how the Indian government supports companies involved in HIV and AIDS interventions.

In India both private and public sector companies are pursuing notable programs of HIV and AIDS awareness and prevention for employees and for local communities. The report highlights lessons from HIV and AIDS interventions by Indian businesses. These lessons include:

• partnerships with local NGOs, State AIDS Control Societies, and other agencies have proved critical  to the success of several programmes
• companies have used several approaches to communicate HIV and AIDS messages to their workforce and local communities
• programmes to support mobile target groups such as sex workers and their clients are important in preventing the spread of the virus
• lack of government health facilities has created challenges in accessing medical and testing facilities
• most programs have encountered resistance to HIV and AIDS messages because of the stigma attached to the epidemic and to topics related to sex

Experience in combating HIV and AIDS in India points to several key recommendations for private and public sector programmes:

• taking early decisive action on prevention before the epidemic gets out of control will pay off for companies
• improved monitoring and evaluation will help in planning and implementing programs, in identifying gaps, and in sustaining, scaling up, and expanding initiatives
• continued financing is especially essential for treatment programs, which, once initiated, must not be interrupted.