Each One Teach One Program

This program began at the time of the last Lok Sabha elections, when teachers from some of our Steria supported schools were deputed for election work leaving the schools with insufficient numbers of teaching staff. Steria India staff volunteers decided to ‘go back to school’ and take classes for the children of these schools as a replacement for the teachers. A team of four volunteers used to take classes for four hours everyday – one hour each – in various subjects like English, Science, Maths and even games and sports. This program which began as a stop gap arrangement was a splendid success, enjoyed by both students as well as the ‘teacher’ that it went on to become a regular supplementary teaching input in these schools even after the teachers returned from election work.

One Steria One Country One School Program

This program commits the different Steria subsidiaries in the different countries – 15 in all excluding India – sponsor one community project in India. The 15 global Steria subsidiaries, each adopt one school, sponsor the computer centre, library, play area and other expenses incurred in setting up this project, totalling 18000 Euros. Steria India will be the implementation partner, and will be responsible for the execution, and taking the project forward. This will include computer lessons by Steria India staff volunteers, English language lessons, mentorship workshops, leadership clubs in computers, environment, theatre, and sports for the children, summer camps, and all the other activities that go along with this model, with the ultimate goal of giving these poor school children – a superior school experience – that only their more affluent counterparts in the city enjoy.

At this point in time we have seven such schools sponsored by six Steria subsidiaries which include Steria Norway, Steria Sweden, Steria France, Steria Denmark, Steria Germany, Steria Group HQ Paris and Steria Spain. The project is fully complete at Govt. Higher Secondary School, Thiruporur (NORWAY), Govt. Girls Higher Secondary School, Thiruporur (Steria Group HQ Paris), Govt. Higher Secondary School, Pallikarni (SWEDEN). Work is in progress for the four other schools sponsored by Denmark, France, Germany and Spain. Sponsorship from the other Steria subsidiaries is in the pipeline.

Steria India Foundation Graguate Scholarship Program

The Steria India Foundation Graduate Scholarship Scheme (SIFGSS) is a fund set up to provide financial assistance to bright young children from Steria supported schools to pursue a college/university education. These students come from extremely challenged backgrounds and who otherwise would be left with no option but to drop out after they complete their schooling. SIFGSS has been operative since the academic year 2008-09 and so far has supported the college education of more than 30 children – Steria Scholars – as they are called who are studying for their graduate degree course in Engineering, Computer Sciences and Commerce.

The corpus that has been established for SIFGSS has been done entirely out of internal fund raisers within Steria and from Steria staff contributions and support. More information on this scheme is available on www.steriaindiafoundation.com

This is a carbon offsetting initiative launched last year on 5 November 2008. The idea was to neutralize the carbon footprint that we create on account of our official air travel. Each domestic return flight releases 0.63 tonnes of carbondioxide per head while each international flight (Europe) - 1.81 tonnes - (www.climatecare.org). Accordingly we had decided to plant one sapling for each domestic flight and three saplings for each international return flight (ref: Carbon Neutral, Auroville, Pondicherry).

As per data received from our Travel Dept., during the period November 2008 to June 2009, there were 598 domestic return flights and 791 international flights. This translates into a sapling planting target of 2971 plants.

On 6 July'09, Steria India CSR, children from Steria supported schools along with Isha Foundation volunteers planted 800 saplings at Mambakkam village in the outskirts of Chennai. These included fruit bearing trees like mango, chikoo and gooseberry along with other flowering trees.

A total of 1750 saplings have been planted so far and the balance of 1221 saplings will also be completed by end December’09.

A number of green boxes are kept at various locations in our offices like the Reception area, in the Travel Dept., and at the CSR team area. Contributions received from staff who are travelling by air, helps accelerate the whole process so that at all times our tree planting is able to keep pace with our carbon footprint on account of our air travel.