Blue Dart encourages ‘Shared Value’ through Employee Volunteerism
In line with Deutsche Post DHL’s ‘Living Responsibility’, Blue Dart takes its responsibility to society, to the communities, to employees and to the environment seriously. Under this credo, Blue Dart (along with DP DHL) focuses its corporate responsibility on environmental protection (GoGreen), disaster management (GoHelp) and championing education (GoTeach). Like every year, Blue Dart in collaboration with DHL celebratedGlobal Volunteer Day (GVD), its largest volunteering exercise conducted across the globe from 4th to 14th September 2014. Global Volunteer Day is a community outreach program focused on instilling among its employees the spirit of volunteerism and encouraging them to make a positive contribution to the world. The program enables employees in the various business units in each country to come together and collaborate on the volunteer activities for the community.
All GVD activities are driven by employee volunteerism – the willingness of employees to volunteer of their own accord, their time, talent and expertise, on behalf of the organization to a worthy social cause that will deliver benefits to their local community, without expecting any rewards or tangible gains in return for their contribution. This year, over 7,500 volunteers across business units in India and over 100,000 globally, joined hands to make a difference during GVD 2014, showcasing exemplary unity in spirit, vision and purpose. Not just employees, but partners and customers also came together to give back to local communities and the local environment through wide ranging initiatives and campaigns.
Key Highlights of GVD 2014:
- GoTeach – 430 volunteers across business units participated in activities likeorganizing drawing competitions, poster designing, conducted games and held a computer training workshop for underprivileged children across 13 locations in association with Teach for India.
- GoGreen – 1700 X BU (cross business unit) volunteers in India supported a staggering 3,000 trees with Grow-Trees.com (official partner of the United Nations Environment Program’s Billion Tree Campaign and WWF’s Cities for Forests Campaign) in Koraput, Odisha to reverse the effects of soil erosion and regenerate degraded forests. Besides this, sapling plantations were also carried out in rural communities in Aurangabad, Satara etc.
- GoHelp – Blood Donation drives were conducted at several facilities across India. Besides this, volunteers also undertook visits to orphanages and old age homes and conducted material donation drives for Goonj. Volunteers also supported Government of India’s mid-day meal programme by donating over 10000 kgs of foodgrains under the ‘Dal by Dal’ campaign with Akshaya Patra and conducted newspaper donation drives with Dhanwantri Medical Trust to support children suffering from cancer.
NGOs like Shop for Change and Multiple Sclerosis Society of India also put up their wares for sale to bring a change in the lives of small farmers/artisans and patients suffering from multiple sclerosis. In addition to this, volunteers conducted cleanliness drives at various locations following the ‘Swach Bharat Abhiyaan’ (Campaign Clean India) mandate by the Hon. Prime Minister of India.
Volunteers also celebrated with children from Sweekar Academy of Rehabilitation, a home that works for the rehabilitation of the physically challenged and hearing impaired children.
