WPP India Foundation wins 'CSR Foundation of the Year' at CSR Impact Awards

The WPP India Foundation was awarded ‘CSR Foundation of the Year’ at the CSR Impact Awards, co-hosted by CSRBOX and the Dalmia Bharat Foundation. Bhagwat Karad Ji, State Minister of Finance – Government of India, attended the awards ceremony.

Part of the India CSR Summit, the CSR Impact Awards encourage companies, foundations, and CSR-implementing agencies to deliver high-impact projects and adopt a multi-stakeholder approach, leading to optimal project outcomes.

A stringent two-round evaluation process examining a host of metrics, including project change, impact numbers, sustainability, innovation and implementation methods led to the WPP India Foundation being named CSR Foundation of the Year. This win comes off the back of the WPP India Foundation winning the ‘Best CSR Impact Practices’ award at the 2018 CSR Impact Awards.

The WPP India Foundation’s Education to Livelihood (‘E2L’) programme focuses on improving the lives of participants aged 11-18 via educational, livelihood, social and health interventions. Some examples include:

• EDUCATION: the programme provides spoken English classes to improve academic scores. Initial impact studies by the programme showed children improving English literacy test scores by 70%, with a 96% overall pass rate across the partner schools in 2022. Furthermore, WPP has independently developed and implemented its digital learning course to upskill participating children in robotics, coding, 3D design and modelling. Through the intervention, the coding ability of participants doubled. Over 60% of girls in this programme stated they have a renewed interest in pursuing computing as a career option.  
• LIVELIHOOD: to help equip children with vocational skills, WPP created the Vocational Skills and Livelihood Training Programme. Through this, WPP was able to equip participants with the confidence, communication and presentation skills needed to land employment. To date, over 1,000 students have been placed, received a better job opportunity, or gained self-employment thanks to the Foundation. In addition, over 200 children have been trained in job-readiness skills, helping them to sustain employment; 60% of these children received an industrial placement or will be pursuing further education.           
• SOCIAL: to stop participants' growth from being hampered by social-norm-related discrimination around gender and caste, the programme introduced modules to create equality through dance, music, and sports. In doing so, WPP helped to reduce gender and caste-based discrimination by 3% and 5% respectively.    
• HEALTH: the programme has introduced health education sessions, as well as health interventions, for anaemia, oral health and vision checks across the participating schools.  

Rama Iyer, Director General of WPP India Foundation, said, “Since its founding in 2015, the WPP India Foundation has proudly opened doors to education, employment and better standards of health for over 15,000 first-generational learners aged 11-18 across 10 underserved government-aided schools across Mumbai, Delhi NCR and Haridwar. As a result, the Foundation has helped over 60% of children secure their future through employment or higher education, reduced dropout rates to less than 5%, initiated better health standards and doubled the coding ability of participants. I am delighted to receive the award in recognition of the valuable contributions that the WPP India Foundation has made to society, an important cause the Foundation is committed to continuing into the future.”

CVL Srinivas, Country Manager of WPP in India, added, “As the creative transformation company, WPP is committed to using the power of creativity to build better futures for our people, planet, clients and communities. The WPP India Foundation is the embodiment of our mission statement. This award, just like the 15,000 lives changed for the better through the Foundation, is a testament to the team’s commitment to creating a better future for our collective community. I couldn’t be prouder. We are grateful to CSRBOX and the Dalmia Bharat Foundation for this honour.”

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