Clean-Up in Kharadi: A Humbling CSR Experience

Saturday March 17th was a humbling day in many ways. For an hour, I walked the neighborhood of Kharadi in Pune, India with my fellow Zensarians as we came together to help clean up one small patch of the city. We were a committed team of 100-plus Zensarians, equipped with brooms, rubber gloves and trash bags. We collected trash from streets and crumpled plastic bags from alleys. We made quick work of revealing the beauty of Kharadi. We reiterated our commitment and respect to the community where we are headquartered because we care. We were all workers with a common sense of caring optimism for our community. Our work did not go unnoticed. Shop owners and residents were happy to see us and thanked us. We had strength in numbers and conviction in what we were doing. Zensarians showed up both physically and mentally. Positive attitudes were in abundance. I hope some of that positivity rubbed off to those in Kharadi.

At Zensar, we have ambitious CSR goals. We have total commitment to all of the communities we serve — every location where we are present globally, both within and outside India. Our volunteerism aligns to the community. We must show up in a meaningful way to contribute. We know that community giving often entails caring for all people, especially those that need help, through education, library, labs, blood drives, clean-up initiatives, food donations or something similar. As a technology company, it made sense to apply our own touch to CSR volunteering so that our people can commit and track their own actions and engage more meaningfully with the society. We took advantage of our proprietary ZenCSR app to power this initiative from start to finish.

We all have a huge responsibility to give back to our community. There is strong evidence that when we selflessly contribute, the entire society follows suit. As a leader, I felt a sense of pride. As an individual, I felt solidarity with my team and the community we serve.

Kharadi will need maintenance. It can become littered again. But today, someone walks a cleaner street. Small actions go a long way. We can all make a choice to make a change.