Celebrating this year’s World Oceans Day theme – “Innovation for a Sustainable Ocean”, HCL Foundation (HCLF), the CSR arm of HCL Technologies, collaborated with the Greater Chennai Corporation (GCC) and Environmentalist Foundation of India (EFI) to launch ‘Revive Chennai’s Coasts’ initiative. The campaign aims to sensitize the resident population along the coast about the hazardous impact of ocean pollution and initiate localized community-based solution through a participatory model for behavioural change.
The year long campaign consists of coastal clean-up and to bring about awareness in Chennai which is home to the world’s second longest beach. In the first phase of the campaign, HCLF, GCC and EFI will kick start clean-up and sensitization activities in and around the 5-km beach stretch between Ashtalakshmi Temple in Besant Nagar and Kottivakkam in Chennai, India.
Further, as part of its commitment to help improve the coastal ecosystem in 25% of the Chennai’s coastline by 2025, HCL Foundation will create ‘Young Community Leaders’ in the form of ‘Ocean Fellows’ as an innovative and sustainable solution to ensure the prevention of waste accumulation. The role of Ocean Fellows’ is to become role model among the local communities to ensure the prevention of waste accumulation and to improve the coastal & marine ecosystem. The ‘Ocean Fellows’ will undergo rigorous training by EFI in the areas of Leadership, Management and Social Innovation. Post-training, the fellows will join into various activities like community volunteering efforts such as adoption and maintenance of a beach stretch, sensitizing visitors on the use of plastic, to introduce ocean-friendly fishing practices, enhanced management of harbours and fish landing sites, eco-sensitization amongst fishing villages etc.
Being a responsible organization, HCL is committed to conserving the coastal ecosystem by protecting the marine biodiversity and strengthening the resilience of the ocean community while taking all possible necessary measures for their restoration in order to achieve healthy and productive oceans under Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 14. This initiative aims at highlighting the fact that it is every individual’s responsibility to use the available resources sustainably and create awareness about the harmful impacts of ocean pollution as nearly 3 billion people currently depend on coastal and marine assets for their livelihood.
HCL Foundation has been working towards sustainable development and advancing the UN Global Compact SDGs. With this intervention, it is extending its commitment towards SDG 14: Life Below Water and advancing SDG 17: Partnerships for the Goals by partnering with Government Agency and NGO. With this, HCLF aims to contribute to India’s National Goals on SDG14 – ‘To prevent and significantly reduce marine pollution’ and ‘Sustainably manage and protect marine and coastal ecosystems’.
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