Women Empowerment and Innovative Life Skills Education Emerge as Top Projects As IMT Ghaziabad Celebrates the Culmination of the I’M The Change Initiative

Ghaziabad: IMT Ghaziabad (IMTG), India’s premier management school with a distinct focus on grooming Leadership through Innovation, Execution and Social Responsibility, celebrated the 2nd I’M The Change Day: Recognition & Closing Ceremony of SSR 2.0, on March 22, 2018. The event marked the conclusion of the 2nd edition of IMTG’s award-winning Experiential Learning Course- Sustainability and Social Responsibility (SSR) under the aegis of the I’M The Change initiative wherein 540 odd full time 2-year PGDM students of IMTG working in groups have delivered 91 field-based social projects across Delhi-NCR in collaboration with 16 NGO partners. The mega event had five segments entitled as- Pradarshan, Pratiyogita, Vartalaap, Samman and Manyata. Of the top three teams, two were in the area of women empowerment and the third on teaching Life Skills through games and play.

Setting the tone of the event, Pradashan captured the dedication, and hard work poured into the live social projects which have been executed, as part of the SSR course. A total of 24 projects were showcased for Pradarshan and Pratiyogita segments in categories like Education, Women Empowerment, Waste Management, Child Sexual Abuse and Soft Skills Training. Some projects also contributed to government initiatives such as Swachh Bharat Mission (Clean India); DDU-GKY etc.

Pratiyogita, the competition based around the shortlisted projects comprised a distinguished panel of judges for the event, namely, Mr Shikhar Jain, Principal Counsellor, CII-ITC, Centre of Excellence for Sustainable Development; Mr Vikas Goswami, Head, Sustainability Good and Green, Godrej Industries Ltd.; Mr Arindam Ghosh, Vice President and Head of Strategy, IL & FS Education and Technology Services; Ms Ratna Anjan Jena, Statistical Adviser, Ministry of Women and Child Development, Govt. of India; Mr Pradeep B. Nair, Regional Director, India, Nepal, Sri Lanka, Ford Foundation; and, Mr. Sachin Adsare, Director, Bhartiya Yuva Shakti Trust (BYST), going through each of the projects to adjudge the top 3 teams.

The Jury members shared their thoughts and views on the course and Social Responsibility in general, as part of Vartalaap. They commended the dedication and passion demonstrated by the students, with Mr Pradeep B. Nair commenting “Being an MBA graduate myself, it is great to see the time and effort being invested by students into this initiative. For those interested, this field holds many career opportunities.” While, Ms Ratna Anjen Jena speaking on the issue of Women Empowerment noted: “Women empowerment can only be done through Economic, Social and Political Empowerment.”

This was followed by the Guest of Honour, Mr Kamal Singh, Executive Director, United Nations Global Compact Network, India, sharing his views on the experiential learning course SSR and how it would help in fostering the culture of Social Responsibility in the B-school environment. In his address, Mr Kamal Singh commented, “The ultimate goal of sustainability is to touch the lives of all people right from the bottom of the pyramid to the top.” Mr Singh then joined Prof. Kasturi Das, Faculty-in-Charge, SSR, IMTG, in felicitation of the NGO partners of the SSR course. Along with the distribution of certificates to the students’ groups who worked with them, the day-long event concluded with the I’M The Change Trophies being awarded to “Top 3” teams from the Pratiyogita segment, namely, “Advay”, “Goodwill Ambassadors” and “Parivartan”. Team “IMTheGreenTeam” received the “Special Jury Award”.

Working with an NGO, team “Advay” (Shubham Sachdeva; Utkarsh Verma; Yashika Gogia; Vismita Rustagi; Yash Sayla and Tanuj Gupta) endeavoured to generate sustainable livelihood for a women’s Self Help Group (SHG) in Dasna, Hapur. Team “Goodwill Ambassadors” (R Ashok Kumar; Aakash; Sarthak K Tripathy; Sonali Mangla, Richa Jain and Aayushi Jain) worked with another women’s SHG in Dasna in partnership with an NGO to develop a source of livelihood for the women, by introducing two environmentally sustainable products – organic ‘Sindoor’ and organic ‘Gulaal’. Team “Parivartan” (Jivesh Kapoor, Aditya Gupta, Manu Singh, Aayush Vats, Pranshu Singh and Shivangi Gupta) reached out to underprivileged kids in a government school in Ghaziabad to teach them Life Skills Education through games and play. “IMTheGreen” team (Saijal Poddar, Himanshu Choudhary, Rahul Agarwal, Arpi Prakash, Tanmay Goel and Swati Pandey) received the “Special Jury Award”. The team conducted a primary-survey based comprehensive action research project towards filling the gap of availability of socio-economic data on Jahangirpuri area in North-West Delhi.

The “I’M the Change” initiative has time and again brought laurels to IMT Ghaziabad, helping the institute bag the Gold Award at the ‘IMC Award for Excellence in Management Education 2017’ held at IIM Lucknow as well as earning accolades at the United Nations’ 2017 Global Forum for Responsible Management Education, which was held in conjunction with the UN Political Forum on Sustainable Development, in New York City, USA. The most recent of these achievements was IMT Ghaziabad’s selection by the United Nations’ Principles of Responsible Management (PRME), as a “PRME Champion”, the distinction being announced at the World Economic Forum in Davos on January 23, 2018. The event was hosted by the Community Outreach & Social Projects (COSP) Committee, the nodal committee wherein students are actively involved in coordination of the I’M The Change Initiative under the guidance of the Faculty-in-Charge Prof. Kasturi Das.