Social Impact

Impacting Lives Beyond Tomorrow

The UN SDGs form a fundamental part of how STL conducts its business, as well as plans and implements its social impact programmes. At STL, our four focus areas – Women Empowerment, Healthcare, Education and Environment form part of India’s development priorities and are also important global goals.

While working with communities for over a decade, we have incorporated learnings to develop more inclusive, tech-driven and sustainable programmes. Community involvement and ownership have been significant contributors to ensuring sustained behavioural change, while technology has helped enhance our reach across urban, semi-urban and rural India.

Through collective action and transformation enablement, even STL’s employees have been able to mobilise communities in a way that has ensured all inclusive progress and development. We have reached some of the country’s remotest villages.

Education for All

Quality education is fundamental to create sustainable growth and progressive communities. It is the most effective enabler that helps break inter-generational cycles of poverty. Education leads to an improved quality of life, equips individuals with knowledge and the capability required to make informed decisions. STL’s education programmes focus on leveraging connectivity and collaborations to ensure access to quality education and digital literacy across age-groups in urban, semi-urban and rural India.

Digital Equaliser and Inclusive Learning programme

With the pandemic-induced lockdown, while children in urban India quickly transitioned to online classes, the glaring digital divide prevented this for many children in rural and marginalized families. STL wanted to ensure that these children do not fall out the education ecosystem and hence initiated its ed-tech Digital Equaliser and Inclusive Learning (DEIL) programme that can operate irrespective of the pandemic situation.

By working closely with the local administration and government schools, the programme has benefitted over 200,000 students across 400 educational institutions in Aurangabad, Nandurbar and Silvassa (India) by improving their learning outcomes. The program ensures access to digital content in vernacular medium and makes learning fun for them. To facilitate better delivery and optimize digital teaching techniques, teachers and school management, in addition to community volunteers are trained on these aspects.

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Beneficiaries from low-income families benefitted through STL’s DEIL programme in FY23

Education institutions covered in FY23

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Students were provided with STEM training

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Teachers and community members trained and benefitted from the DEIL programme in FY23

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Villages across Aurangabad, Nandurbar and Silvassa covered in FY23

Supporting Women’s Economic Empowerment

Women have the innate ability to bring about inter-generational change on account of their daily interactions at home and in their communities. However, even today women in rural India, despite their ambition to study, pursue a career or even work seldom have the freedom to do so. They are still considered homemakers. STL has hence been focussing on this area since 2008 to ensure women are empowered and guided to not just improve their livelihoods, but lead the change they would like to see in their communities through example.

Jeewan Jyoti Programme

Set up in Velhe, Maharashtra (India) in 2014, the Jeewan Jyoti Women Empowerment Programme aims at changing traditional patriarchal notions about the roles of women. While it started with equipping rural women in Pune with vocational skills in tailoring, fashion designing, computers, beauty culture and nursing, it has evolved by helping them drive progress and development for their communities and villages through self-help groups, setup up enterprises through facilitation of micro-financing, digital marketing and even design handicrafts for sale through a newly established production unit.

Through a holistic approach, which incorporates personality development, soft skills and interactions with city folk through mentoring sessions and excursions, these women are transformed into envoys of change. They are no longer just homemakers, but leaders and role models for the younger girls in their villages. Through their progress and ability to help their communities, they have even gone on to change the perception their elders have of working and independent women.

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Villagers benefited through the Jeewan Jyoti programme in FY23

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villages covered in rural Pune

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Women empowered through vocational training, micro-financing and sustainable livelihoods

Making Quality Healthcare Commonplace

Ensuring good health and wellbeing across all age groups is essential to build sustainable communities. It indirectly affects a community’s ability to enhance their livelihoods and contribute to achieving several other national and global goals. STL believes that access to quality healthcare should not be a privilege for a few who have the financial capability. It is a necessity and should reach every person irrespective of their financial or cultural background or where they live.

The Hybrid Healthcare Programme

To ensure some of the neediest communities in rural India have access to quality healthcare not just at their doorsteps, but anytime and anywhere, STL initiated a telehealth-onsite hybrid healthcare programme. Covering over 200 villages across Aurangabad, Gadchiroli and Nandurbar (India), the programme aims to reduce the morbidity among the rural population in these regions through ongoing awareness and social behaviour change projects coupled with free onsite and teleconsultation, testing and medication. Reinforced through ongoing social behavior change efforts, the programme ensures sustainable change and behaviours in these villages. Till date, the program has benefitted over 2.5 million lives.

Healthcare even forms an integral part of our Women Empowerment and Volunteering initiatives. By providing communities with the means to guarantee their health and wellbeing, we have been ensuring that these remote and poorer sections of society are not left unattended right from 2006. Over the years, we have looked at ways to incorporate technology into our programmes, thereby bringing in better and more efficient ways to address hygiene and health issues among patients across different age groups and ensure their health and wellbeing.

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Lives benefited through healthcare programs in FY23

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Women and children benefitted through healthcare interventions

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Villages covered across Maharashtra in FY23

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Tele-consultations done in FY23

Committed to a Cleaner & Greener Future for Communities

Climate change is today one of the world’s most pertinent problems. The vagaries caused by climate change not only have a devastating effect on human life, but also on a country’s economy, property, individual health, lead to scarcity of resources, hunger, famines and so on. However, despite the floods and rising sea level, another major result of climate change that is prevalent across the globe has been water scarcity and droughts inevitably leading to famines, loss of livelihoods, landholdings and increased indebtedness.

STL understands both these issues and has thus designed holistic programs that endeavour to bring about sustainable transformation through behavioural change. The community therefore features not as a beneficiary in our environment programs, but as an important partner. We work together with them to not only address environmental issues, but also related underlying problems that pose an impediment to progress.

Mission Green

The need to enhance the country’s green cover is undeniable. And we intend contributing to making that possible by undertaking 5 million plantations by 2025.

At Vetale village in Maharashtra, we have reforested 40 acres of barren land as well as restored the bio-diversity in this area through 9,000+ plantations. Specially constructed water harvesting structures, have ensured sustainability of the programme by making available the necessary water required by the trees through the year.

We have also undertaken massive afforestation efforts in Aurangabad. Over 250,000 plantations have been done. Our belief is that every plant contributes to increasing the green cover in the region and helps in mitigating the harmful effects of industrialisation

Holistic Water Programme

Together with World Bank’s Water Resources 2030 group, STL is looking to build water resilient villages in Aurangabad. To build in sustainability the programme is also working with the Government of Maharashtra through the Village Social Transformation Foundation to prioritise women participation in the climate action, community involvement and convergence with various administrative schemes. Till date almost 2.5 million cubic meters of water have been replenished through 90+ water conservation and ground water recharge structures built and redeveloped.

Apart from these community programmes, we look for every opportunity to drive environmental related initiatives through our own operations, thereby exponentially enhancing the cumulative impact towards these global goals while at the same time setting the bar higher for what it means to operate responsibly.

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Lives benefited through environment conservation programs in FY23

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Households provided with functional tap connections through convergence funding

Plantations done in Aurangabad in FY23

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Of land covered through afforestation

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Being made water resilient

Creating a conscientious culture through volunteering

With the help of STL’s employees – its transformation enablers, we have been able to reach out further and wider than we could on our own. Our employee volunteers are examples of STL’s value system. Despite their busy schedules they have taken time to volunteer and spend time with those less fortunate both virtually and in person, showing them the world still cares.