Abuja’s Gram Seva
Michigan-headquartered MiraMed Global Services, LLC, said its global subsidiary, Ajuba International, LLC, has established an initiative called Gram Seva, or “village service”, to focus on educating staff on local social responsibility as part of its Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR).
India is the second-largest agricultural producer in the world. Gram Seva originated as an initiative to drive home the importance of avoiding food waste by allowing people to become involved at the grassroots level.
From “soil-to-plate,” the lifecycle of grain is six – seven months, with almost daily maintenance. Gram Seva is an initiative that would help people understand the effort, not by observation, but by action.
The Ajuba CSR team, identified a village in the Thiruvanamalai District named Vadakupattu, a village with a population of about 150 people.
The village has one panchayat office and one elementary school, with agriculture being the main occupation of the villagers there. When the CSR team pitched the idea to the panchayat head and villagers there, it was enthusiastically received.
Within the Ajuba office, 25 employees were shortlisted to participate.
The challenges of working on a farm were a far cry from the staffs’ usual daily lives living in the city.
The Ajuba employees experienced scorching heat working in the fields, getting their hands dirty, sowing saplings, tending to agricultural residue, weeding the fields, bundling hay and feeding animals, cooking on wood fire and brick stove, etc.
In two days, the team learned through experience the challenges associated with farming, the efforts required for agriculture production and respect for the food that reaches the plate.
This experience will hold a special place in the heart of every individual in the team and go a long way in making a meaningful difference in the way food is handled.
Sharing the successful completion of the pilot, Hema Parikh, Director of HR at Ajuba Solutions said, “Our passion of being in synch with the global agenda of reducing food waste resonates a strong signal of Ajuba supporting a definitive change. We will do our best to educate our community on these lines.”
Ajuba intends to continue Gram Seva in phases, adopting numerous villages along the way, so many employees and villages can benefit.
This commitment is echoed from the top management of Ajuba’s parent company, MiraMed Global Services.
“There is something very gratifying about this whole initiative. I extend my appreciation and thanks to the CSR team at Ajuba for having worked out a program to reach out to the farmers. As a community, this program is in line with the FAO’s agenda of SAVE FOOD and initiatives like Gram Seva is yet another commitment by the MiraMed Family of Companies to the society we live in,” said Tony Mira, Founder and CEO of MiraMed Global Services. Fii-news.com
