RBL Bank Volunteering Initiatives, Testimonials and Snapshots
Volunteer Spotlight
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Key Projects
Umeed’s 1000 Cyclothon
UMEED 1000 Cyclothon, is a fundraising and an awareness initiative started in 2014 by RBL Bank employees. In the year 2014, the participating cyclists covered 1000 kms from Mumbai to Bangalore, in 2015 from Mumbai to Delhi, in 2016 from Mumbai to Hyderabad, in 2017 Hyderabad to Vizag and in 2018 Mumbai to Bangalore to raise funds for Girl Child Education. The 6th edition of the 1000 km Cyclothon was flagged off from Udaipur, on November 10th, 2019 and culminated at Amritsar on November 19th, 2019.
Why are we doing this Cyclothon?
In India, close to 53% of girls in the age group of 5 to 9 years are illiterate. More than 50% of girls fail to enroll in school; those that do are likely to drop out by the age of 12. Around 39.4% of adolescent girls in the 15-18 age group are not attending any educational institution, and a vast majority — around 65%— of them are ‘either engaged in household activities, are dependents, or, are engaged in begging’, suggests a recent report by the National Commission for Protection of Child Rights (NCPCR).
UMEED 1000 Cyclothon is a universal call to action to all the citizens of India, individuals, non-profits, businesses. We all share an equal responsibility to do our bit in order to reduce this social gap. One of the most effective ways to break the cycle of poverty and backwardness is education for all. Especially essential for women empowerment, the efforts need to be put in while they are young. We must strive to provide proper education to girls as they are our hope for a better and brighter future.
|
SNo |
Year |
Route |
Cause |
Beneficiary |
Funds Collected |
|
1 |
2014 |
Mumbai to Bangalore |
Retinoblastoma |
Iksha foundation |
25 lakhs |
|
2 |
2015 |
Mumbai to Delhi |
Girl child Education |
IIMPACT |
137 lakhs |
|
3 |
2016 |
Mumbai to Hyderabad |
Girl child Education |
IIMAAA HCCT |
87 lakhs |
|
4 |
2017 |
Hyderabad to Visakhapatnam |
Girl child Education |
IIMAAA HCCT |
150 lakhs |
|
5 |
2018 |
Mumbai to Bangalore |
Girl child Education |
IIMAAA HCCT |
250 lakhs |
|
6 |
2019 |
Udaipur to Amritsar |
Girl child Education |
IIMAAA HCCT |
510 lakhs |
The Beneficiary
UMEED 1000 Cyclothon has pledged to support the education of the girl children in the schools run by ‘Udbhav’. In the past, the funds raised were used in and supporting two schools in Hyderabad for underprivileged communities. The aim is to set up more such schools in the backward areas in the country.
Udbhav School was started by IIMA Alumni who are spurred by the vision that all children should have the same opportunities. Their goal is to impart holistic education to every child to make them future-ready, to make them good citizens of India. The school was renamed as “Udbhav School ” by IIMAAA charitable trust. The management is committed to providing the children with opportunities for their all-round growth and development. Their main goal is to ensure that the students of Udbhav School have access to quality education and opportunities to reach their full potential.
What are we doing?
RBL Bank, since the last 6 years, has been deeply engaged with the cause of ‘Girl Child Education’ through this unique awareness campaign - UMEED 1000. In 2019, our lead cyclist and coach, Jasmeet Singh Gandhi was accompanied by 35 cyclists, all of whom are employees of the bank in completing a 1000 km road stretch from Udaipur – Delhi – Amritsar. A total of INR 5.1 crores of funds had been raised through various innovative channels including crowdfunding campaigns. The proceedings were donated to Udbhav School in a glittering ceremony amidst all fanfare to Udbhv School on 19th Nov, 2019 at IIM Amritsar campus.
Blood Donation Drive
RBL Bank in association with Think Foundation conducted a Blood Donation Camp to spread awareness on the immense value-add that Blood Donation has on several lives at a time. Think Foundation is in touch with more than 4000 children living with Thalassemia Major. For survival, the children need lifelong blood transfusions, every 15 days on an average. More than 1000 units of blood were collected to support the thalasemmic children. This was a pan India activity at the branches where customers and employees along with their families participated with full enthusiasm.
iVolunteer Driven Initiatives
iVolunteer has executed multiple group engagement also known as Hands-on Volunteering activities for RBL Bank in different locations, where employees got an opportunity to interact with a different set of beneficiaries and contribute towards diverse causes. A few such success stories are shared below:
Best out of Waste-Planter making: This activity was focused on creating awareness about the environmental degradation and to encourage employees to take part in planters making activity by instilling the concept of 3R (Reduce, Reuse and Recycle) for a sustainable living environment.
Employees got an opportunity to convert waste plastic bottles in to useful planters, they also learned about the saplings and basic requirements (Soil, Light and Water) of the plant for its survival in these plastic containers. 24 RBL Bank employees from Delhi office came together to make this activity a hit.
Adolescent girl Visit to Bank: 16 girl from the NGO Grace social and educational society, visited one of the RBL Bank offices in Hyderabad, this initiative was supported by Mr. Sumeeth Chilkuri, RBL Bank. This was an incredible opportunity for the girls, as this gave an exposure to understand the basic operation and observer the functioning of a bank. Few female employees interacted with these young girls and shared their inspiring journey and how they started working RBL Bank. Later, Mr. Madhukar the head of corporate banking shared about the initiatives taken up by RBL bank along with statistics. The girls/beneficiaries returned to the NGO where they were served a special meal which was sponsored by RBL Bank.
Paper Bag making: Creating awareness around environment conservation and reducing the use of plastic is the need of the hour and this was the objective of paper Bag making activity. This activity was not just focused on reducing the usage of plastics bag and encouraging reuse of used newspapers as paper-bags but this was also an opportunities for the employees to use their creativity and devote a few hours towards fun, stress buster hours. This activity took place across offices and cities such as Mumbai, Ahmedabad and Chennai. Employees participate with lot of enthusiasm and made 1000+ paper bags, which were distributed to local vendors.
Why should you volunteer?
By reaching out and helping those in need, our volunteers not only help the communities they operate in but also improve their own and the communities’ happiness quotient through their effort.
|
Yash Panchal |
"Cyclothon has changed me as a person. The joy you get from giving back to society can’t be expressed in words, it has to be felt. Last year, during the Cyclothon, we interacted with the children’s of Udbhav School for whom we have raised funds. The cramps sweat and pain all seemed worth it. I thank RBL Bank for giving me the opportunity to take part and make these children’s dream of going to school and achieving their dreams come true. Those moments will be cherished for a lifetime!" |
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Deepti Kaudiya |
“Good program on overall environment awareness and reusing/recycling of plastic, very engaging and informative. Lots of fun while making plastic planters” -Deepti Kaudiya |
|
Sinclair Miranda |
"To achieve your dreams, discipline is key. That was our message to the youth of Oscar Foundation during our friendly match. We enjoyed a well contested match with their team and after the match, we spent time learning about the players’ background and how Oscar Foundation is helping them realise their dream of playing competitive football. We spent a wonderful morning interacting with them and motivating these young players telling them to never give up on their dreams." |
|
Janardhan Behare |
"The children from the El Shadai Trust were in the 3-5 year age bracket which did not leave too much room for explaining computer basics to them. However, they were more than willing to play games and interacted enthusiastically with the volunteers. Our volunteers did an excellent job in keeping the children entertained and made sure every child left from there with a small gift for their effort. It was really touching to see how happy the children were when they received the drawing books and colours." |
