Champion initiatives through collaborative projects that engage clients, employees, residents, the government, and external stakeholders for community development. Embassy has a vision to build a fine social infrastructure and a sustainable ecosystem in and around the communities we serve. Thus, we see a great deal of scope for collaboration in the future as effective partnerships between industry, foundations, NGOs, and the government put social development on the fast track.
To create awareness around the International Day of Disabled Persons, Embassy in association with the Diversity and Equal Opportunity Centre (DEOC) hosted a session on ‘Optimal Implementation of Rights of Persons with Disabilities Act’ to make urban spaces more accessible. The event hosted differently-abled speakers who shared their experiences, the issues they face with the current system and the necessity for sensitisation amongst various sectors.
To raise awareness amongst corporates about the promotion of Sport being included in the scope of CSR spending and encourage them to consider funding sport in their CSR efforts, Embassy curated a panel discussion, ‘Making Sport in India.’ This event a part of a series of round tables and forums called the Embassy Engage Series that provides platforms for corporates to deliberate on a variety of social challenges. The forum included a panel discussion involving cricketing legend Sunil Gavaskar, Jitu Virwani – Chairman & Managing Director of Embassy Group and Founder of the Embassy International Riding School (EIRS), Kamal Bali, President & Managing Director of Volvo, Badminton star Aparna Popat and well-known cricket scribe Suresh Menon. The panel, moderated by Ashwini Nachappa, India’s ace sprinter and founder of Ashwini’s Sports Foundation, discussed the path towards a sports revolution in India, the challenges to creating a robust grassroots program for identifying and nurturing talent, and the need to reignite the love for sport in school.
Embassy, in collaboration with iVolunteer, hosted the 2nd Corporate Round Table on Employee Engagement. 36 participants from 11 corporates and 3 NGOs, including our corporate occupiers, Cognizant, ANZ, Concentrix, IBM, Mitel, Lowes, Fidelity and Ola, joined us at Manyata to present opportunities for sustainable action around our communities and case studies on successful impact through active employee participation. The round table resulted in the creation of a consortium of Corporates that were keen to engage their employees in collaboratating with the Ugly Indians to clean up and upgrade public spaces around their offices.
To celebrate International Day of the Girl, Embassy helped the Canadian High Commission to host a brunch for a host of senior corporate heads and 14 girl students from Shanti Bhavan school, followed by an opportunity for attendees to shadow a CXO for the day. Embassy was joined by Infosys, Novatek International, Amadaus Software Labs India Pvt. Ltd. among others to help familiarise girls with the corporate world and inspire them to aim for the top.
On August 21st, Embassy Group hosted the third Embassy Engage Series: Conversations on Collaboration CSR Round Table. 50 attendees from 12 corporates and 4 NGOs came together to explore and discuss the advantages of collaboration in the space of Education in CSR. The panel included Shaina Ganapathy - Head of Community Outreach & Education, Embassy Group, Parul Soni of Thinkthrough Consulting and representative of the Karnataka Government Department of Education, representatives from ANZ, Swiss Re and JCPenney, as well as Myriam Shankar, Managing Trustee of TAICT (the Anonymous Indian Charitable Trust).
The Indo-American Chamber of Commerce (IACC), in association with Stonehill International School, the Embassy Community Outreach Team and ChildFund India, hosted a forum on creating child-friendly CSR programmes in corporate India. The panel included speakers from corporates, NGOs and educational institutions, ending with Dr. PC Jaffer, Commissioner for Public Instruction, encouraging corporates to reach out to him with ideas, challenges and needs to further inspire collaboration.
On Dec 12th, Embassy had the opportunity to co-host a CSR Forum titled CSR: Reaching your Impact along with the American Chamber of Commerce at the Hilton. This Forum brought together over 50 participants representing 30 American corporates, including many of our park occupiers such as JC Penney, PWC, Goldman Sachs, Cognizant and Lowes to share their learnings and challenges since the CSR Law came into effect in 2013.
In collaboration with ACT Grants and United Way Bengaluru, our 9th Embassy Engage Series hosted speakers such as Prashanth Prakash, Partnerat Accel, Aditya Virwani, COO at Embassy Group, Rajesh Krishnan, Executive Director at United Way Bengaluru and Dr. Nandakumar Jairam, Chairman and Global Medical Director at Columbia Asia Hospitals. This was an online event, and was attended by 20 corporate partners, including IBM, ANSR, SVB, MBRDI and Biocon.
Our 10th Embassy Engage Series was on Inclusion in the Workplace for Persons with Disability was in collaboration with EnAble India. Our speakers included Mike Holland, CEO Embassy REIT, Nayanthara Janardhan, Program Manager at Enable India, and Shaina Ganapathy, Head of Community Outreach, Embassy Group. This was an online event and was attended by 11 corporate partners, including Commonwealth Bank of Australia, Mitel, Indegene, Target and Nvidia.
Embassy Group, along with our corporate partners, Cerner, SVB and Cognizant, hosted a discussion with a team of government authorities from the CPI’s (Karnataka) office on Namma Shaale Nanna Koduge (NSNK). NSNK is a website under progress through which corporates can find specifications of government schools and their requirements. The website aims to make it convenient for corporates to find relevant schools for their CSR initiatives and also to align CSR goals with that of the government, so as to avoid unnecessary repetition of efforts.
With 7 successful editions, Pedal For The Planet is a unique cycling event for the public conceptualized by Embassy Group, one of India's leading property developers. As responsible developers with the largest office parks portfolio in the country and a host of luxury residential developments in Bangalore, we would like to be a pioneer to promote cycling to work for a greener planet. All proceeds raised at the Embassy Pedal for the Planet is donated to Colours of Life. Additionally one tree is planted per registration.
To enhance the areas around our business parks, employees from Embassy and our occupiers actively volunteer in activities to clean up and beautify various hotspots. Together we have engaged more than 1600 corporate employees and volunteers to give back to surrounding communities.
Embassadors continue to uphold Embassy’s Culture of Giving by actively donating towards charitable causes such as equitable education, provision of basic hygiene products to underprivileged children, and Covid-relief measures.
As part of our efforts to reiterate the importance of good health and hygiene practices, volunteers can go to government schools to interact with the children and help them build healthy habits. These sessions are conducted using our health kits and health awareness posters, workbooks and other collateral.
Sinchana is our annual extravaganza to celebrate Children’s Day, curated by our education partner, Colours of Life. Now in it’s 6th year, Sinchana aims at fostering talent through an interschool competition with participation from 15 government schools. The event hosts exciting categories for competition, ranging from academic (such as essay writing and public speaking) to artistic (including mehendi design, drawing, dance and song).
As part of our efforts to reiterate the importance of good health and hygiene practices, our employees curated an in-house program at two government schools as part of the summer camp run by our NGO partner, Colours of Life. 6 Embassy employee volunteers implemented the program based around two themes: the importance of brushing and the right kinds of food for to maintain good dental hygiene. With a total student strength of 70, each volunteer took on a small group of kids to lead them through activities followed by a discussion on what they learned and ended the program with a distribution of a toothbrush and a toothpaste to each child.
Embassy hosted 85 students from Colours of Life Academy for a day at Embassy Manyata Business Park. The students, who are alumni of government schools receiving vocational mentoring, were given a full tour of the park’s training facilities by Embassy Services, as well as career advice and guidance.
