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Empowering people, society through CSR our ethos, says GP executive

Kamrun Nahar | July 07, 2014 00:00:00


Big corporations need to collaborate in the field of corporate social responsibility (CSR) to make greater impact for wellbeing of the people, a Grameenphone top official said.

To him CSR is a long term sustainable commitment to work for the benefit of people by addressing some pressing issues. It is beyond the mere philanthropic activities which require increased involvement of the company itself and not just to donate money and sit idle to allow other people work for them.

"We integrate our business practices and CSR by connecting with people and involving our expertise for the social and economic empowerment of the teeming millions in Bangladesh," GP communications director Mr Marcus Adaktusson told the FE in a recent interview.

GP is one of the three companies which received 5th Standard Chartered-Financial Express CSR Award for their outstanding contribution for the betterment of the community and role in the country's development process. The other two companies were BSRM Group and Unilever Bangladesh.

"We're of course very proud to receive this award after having spent much time and energy over the last years to create a sustainable CSR strategy, focusing on health and education initiatives. We're also grateful to Standard Chartered Bank and Financial Express for acknowledging our efforts as well as recognizing CSR practices at large as part of business in Bangladesh," said Mr Marcus.

To him the award is a call to action to continue empowering people and society through use of mobile connectivity and internet.

Being a socially responsible company, Grameenphone has taken up the initiative of providing education to the children who have no access to education at all particularly in rural and hard-to-reach areas. Also the issue of quality primary education in Bangladesh was taken into account in providing the service which is one of the key focus of millennium development goals (MDGs).

GP wanted to find out a way to intervene through which quality education can be ensured. With this objective in mind the company launched the 'Online School' (pilot) project in Gazipur (about 20 km North of Dhaka) in August 2011 with an objective to ensure quality education for underprivileged and left out children living in remote areas and develop teachers who can deliver quality education.

GP uses Webex (CISCO) Software and few self developed contents, internet connectivity with fiber optic cable or radio link in this process.

At the very beginning there were only 80 students. At present GP runs five such Online Schools in Gazipur, Gaibandha, Bandarban, Madaripur and Rajshahi where the number of students is 360 who receive education in 10 classes. Gaibandha, Madaripur and  Bandarban have elementary level and Gazipur and Rajshahi have both elementary level and KG 1 .  The teacher used to conduct the class from Rayerbazaar (about 40 km from the physical school).

All the teachers conduct their classes from the teacher's centre located at Rayer Bazaar in Dhaka. GP runs the project in collaboration with Jaago Foundation and Agni Systems Limited.

Mr Marcus thinks awareness, price levels of ICT products, illiteracy are the main barriers in achieving the target of turning Bangladesh into a digital one.

"When we talk about barriers to increase internet usage, the main issues right now is lack of awareness and affordability," he noted.

As an operator, GP is working to address these aspects by educating people about the benefits of internet, supporting local content developers and encouraging the eco-system of manufacturers and device makers to produce affordable products and services. These aspects are all relevant to the company's ambition of providing internet for all.

Grameenphone launched Telemedicine Pilot Initiative to provide initially quality skin disease consultations to the underprivileged community who does not have access to modern medical services. The prime objective of this project is to enhance the quality of life of vulnerable and underserved community of peri-urban/urban slum and rural Bangladesh. An innovative device has been developed, named DICOT (Digital Imaging & Communication on Telemedicine) which is supported by software, named TIMES (Telemedicine Information Management & Education System).

ICT ministry is the key partner for the development of a policy framework in order to standardize the telemedicine system while Telemedicine Working Group of Bangladesh (TWGBD) is the technology partner for the inclusion of new health services to explore the scalability of the initiative. Aysha Memorial Specialized Hospital, Dusthya Sathya Kendro and Concern Worldwide are the implementing partners for supporting the on-ground operations of the system.

Since inception in May 2013 till April this year about 4,500 patients took consultation services under the initiative on skin disease from 3 pilot sites. DICOT has been modified to cater other health services like maternal & child health care, primary & secondary health care and so forth. A stethoscope has been added into the device along with a scanner in order to transmit more clinical data to address new services. GP will add 20 new rural static sites into the program and also 20 Service Delivery Points on smart phones/tablets in hard-to-reach community.

GP has been trying to contribute in the government's target for a Digital Bangladesh. The company targets to provide 2.1 million Internet hours to 100,000 students at 250 schools across the country. GP envisions building a digital future for Bangladesh and empowering societies by providing "Internet for All". The initiative is part of global "Safer Internet" aimed at creating awareness about internet safety for young users.

Rural Bangladesh is still struggling with poor ICT infrastructure, low internet penetration, lack of awareness and limited access to different required information and content services, which has created a major digital divide between rural and urban societies. This programme aims to help broaden access to the world of ICT for school children, especially those living in rural Bangladesh. The campaign will aid in creating equal opportunity to access educational content, news, information and knowledge for all.

Another milestone CSR initiative of GP is to help poor people in rural areas to access to safe drinking water aiming to improve the health and sanitation situation of the country. Lack of access to safe drinking water and adequate sanitation facilities are a significant barrier to improving the health and wellbeing and reducing poverty in Bangladesh. Salinity in ground and surface water, arsenic contamination of shallow aquifer, lack of aquifer and difficulties in extracting saline free water are some of the causes.

Together, unclean water and poor sanitation are a leading cause of child mortality. Women and girls are disproportionately affected by scarcities of clean water and adequate sanitation while women are more than twice likely than men to be responsible for water collection.  HYSAWA has installed about 30,000 tubewells funded by DANIDA in collaboration with LGRD Ministry in around 300 unions. GP CR has introduced an SMS based solution through which a dysfunctional tubewell will get repaired from the mechanic after an SMS is sent at certain number. This solution helps ensuring safe drinking water for approximately 1.0 million people of southwest regions in Bangladesh.

In pursuing CSR activities here, Mr Marcus feels some kind of challenge. Among them prioritization is the biggest challenge.

"Some challenges are there when it comes to doing CSR. The first one is to priorities the projects where we can make the biggest difference, as well as finding the right partners within and outside the industry," he observed.

Most understand that good CSR work is result of sustainable commitment, which in turn comes from establishing shared value for business and society.

"Hence, we need to be able to take a long-term view on the initiatives we enter into," he added.

Mr Marcus sees CSR as a practice which is becoming more developed, and this is happening rapidly.

"In addition to traditional philanthropy, I believe companies' engagement in CSR will increase when their projects become connected to their expertise. To us, this means that we will continue to find ways of empowering societies and help individuals go beyond through connectivity and internet," he hopes.

For Mr Marcus finding a right partner in a right project is the most challenging part in conducting CSR activities in Bangladesh which mostly determines where the resources are being given and how it is spent. Other challenges include prioritization of programmes, collaboration among big corporations and absence of a National CSR Policy.

 


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