Rubamin Industries is a recognized, compliant and responsible recycler in India, transforming hazardous industrial wastes into useful chemicals in operations for more than 30 years.

As a part of their CSR initiative Rubamin runs a long -term education programme called “Read Panchmahal” in association with with PRatham Education Foundation to provide primary education in thirty villages in Panchmahal district benefitting over 400 children. This program also empowers teachers and volunteers by conducting training and activity workshops to hone their skills as the success of the program greatly rides on them.

ARCH is Rubamin’s preferred CSR consultants since 2015 for facilitating strategic planning of Project Read Panchmahal. We work towards setting realistic goals for the program and create a plan of action to mobilise resources for smooth and effective execution. We undertake their project monitoring to overlook and review proper and on-schedule execution of the plan and ensure all bench-mark and performance targets are suitably met.  We also conduct project evaluation to assess the overall progress and achievement of the project components to date as against the expected target. We identify the bottlenecks and challenges in turn laying our recommendations to increase effectiveness and efficiency of the program. We understand the project impact on all the stakeholder groups and review the sustainability of the same over estimated project life.

This role of strategic planning, monitoring and impact assessment has greatly boosted the success of Project “Read Panchmahal” and we are leaving no stones unturned to ensure that every child gets his right to basic education.

Mundra International Container Terminal Pvt. Ltd. (MICT) is one of the most technically advanced port facilities in the Indian subcontinent. The CSR interventions by MICT are in accordance of 4 quadrants viz. Market Place, Environment, People and Safety and Community Development. Since past 2 years, MICT has made deep inroads in the field of education, health and environment for sustainable transformation in the target area of the project activities.

We at ARCH undertook an evaluation study for following interventions –

1. Science on wheel by Agastya Foundation
2. Adolescent health by CHETNA
3. Gyansetu by CEE (Centre for Environment Studies)
4. Medical mobile van by Tai Foundation and
5. Infrastructural support to Mundra Institute for Medical support

Assessment of all the projects was carried out by using social accounting and impact matrix by defining outcome and impact indicator for each and every stakeholder of the program. We covered more than 1500 sample size for the study conducted over a period of two months. The outcome of was very fruitful. We highlighted the tangible and measurable results achieved by the organisation under these programs and its contribution to strengthening old programs. We also laid the groundwork and framework for future interventions and next year’s proposed plan of CSR initiatives.

Corporate Social Responsibility carries a distinct perspective on the role of business in society. The central idea underlying the principle of CSR is creating “shared value.” ARCH has identified the role of Essar Refinery operating in Khambalia village, as it achieves its primary objective of creating value for its shareholders to also create value for society, thereby establishing a win-win proposition.

In this case, ARCH worked closely with their relevant stakeholders and designed a long term perspective plan involving a comprehensive framework covering interventions in 12 project villages in the Jamnagar district for a ten years’ period viz 2016 to 2026. The perspective plan encompasses the following broad components for the overall development of these villages.

• Water Resources Development and Management; Climate Smart Farming;
• Livestock Development and Management;
• Women and youth Empowerment, awareness and skill development, and Capacity Building;
• Monitoring, Learning and Evaluation;

Perspective planning is a blueprint with respect to the objectives and targets of long run growth. It is not just a plan, rather in order to achieve specific objectives and targets; the perspective plan is divided into focused smaller plans.  It is a tedious process which requires gathering information, analyzing it, making assessments, estimations and projections relating to quantitative dimension of medium and long term development goal of the program.

The Features of our perspective plan for ESSAR FOUNDATION

Village based – with the village as the unit for planning

Holistic – covering socio-economic aspects of development

Diagnostic – based on an analysis of problems helping in identifying gaps and needs and also indicating the nature of inputs required.

Delineate baselines – is used as a basis for setting units/indicators for progress and achievements

Indicate out-come based strategies – to ensure apt mechanism for monitoring of the program

Indicate methods for measurement of outcome as well as verification means

Map resources to ensure the sustainability of expected outcome in short and long term

Euroflex serves global original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) from Hyderabad, India. Being a leading supplier of high performance disc couplings used in power generation, gas compression and industrial process machinery applications its base has been in Balanagar, Hyderabad for many decades now.

Keen on doing more than supporting local NGOs in adhoc charity and donations, it wanted create a strong mark on the local population and community at large through focused CSR initiatives in the area of its operation. Seeking professional help to put matters in order, it beckoned ARCH to identify and create a holistic CSR plan aligned with the local need that served long-term sustainability. We were happy to get onboard!

Right from the calculation of the company’s CSR spending for the year 2016-17 to conducting bench marking of CSR activities in the same area ARCH got on the mission in no time. Prior to our involvement the CSR constitution was simply on paper. There was no team or process in place. We designed a unique CSR strategy after the need based assessment and situation analysis study. We gathered the needs and expectations from the local community, gauged their problems and everyday challenges and drew up an effective CSR program where Euroflex Transmission would help in the upliftment and betterment of the local community’s life.

Further, we created the constitution and conducted orientation of the company’s CSR committee and re-invented the CSR strategy into a CSR policy document as per Section 135 of the Companies Act 2013.

ARCH understands that there are various organisations committed to doing well for their society but lack the vision and skill to make a continuous and sustainable difference to the community just like Euro Transmission. We cater to such enterprises in serving to be their strongest ARCH for sturdiest CSR development.

New Lift Charitable Trust (NLCT) is an organization devoted to the upliftment of the destitute community and preservation of sacred cows.  Presently it is associated with many activities including housing and supporting 120 impoverished people; old, women and orphans, running a gaushala with 58 cows, working for the betterment of Eraiyar village community and developing skills among children of the Panchayat Union Middle school.

NLCT was keen to get a holistic review of all the activities that they were engaged in and understand the impact and sustainability of their ongoing projects.

ARCH came on board as the Social Auditor for social accounting of all their interventions done by Social Audit Network, India.

We measured and reported the social and ethical performance of NLCT and helped to narrow gaps between their vision and actual reality. Such an exercise gave NLCT a fresh perspective about the future of their endeavors and helped them collate and collaborate their efforts better.

STEM runs an initiative called Mini Science Center (M.S.C.) for students from the under privileged section to help build interest and curiosity in the field of maths and science through hands on experiments. ARCH conducted a quantitative and qualitative study to assess the impact of M.S.C. keeping in mind all important stakeholders.

Information was gathered from the 2000 beneficiary students, teachers and school management teams across three states - Maharashtra, Gujarat and Rajasthan. Numbers were analyzed, case studies were reported and all relevant data needed to record the impact of the intervention were assessed.

Post the study, ARCH worked closely with STEM as a consultant for strategic planning of their program for a year. It created a long term perspective for the organization; establishing a system to monitor development on the ground, developing a mobile app as tracking tool, documenting progress of the project and evaluating the project based on the defined outcome indicators on a quarterly basis.

Today, STEM Learning Pvt. Ltd. is in a much better operational and financial space. The new business strategy and high quality systems have resulted to new leads and better growth!

The Gramshilpi is partnership program of Centre for Environment Education (CEE) and Gujarat Vidyapeeth where volunteer youth are trained to work in remote villages and backward areas of the country to create development and an avenue for simple sustainability. However, the program which was developed a few years ago was losing momentum and impact with high number of drop-outs of volunteer youth.

ARCH was enabled the task of evaluating Gramshilpi with the objective of critically analyzing the concept of the program, bottleneck and challenges associated with it, the impact of the work already done and progress and achievement in relation to targets.

With a comprehensive study involving all stakeholders, over a period of 3 months a complete project report was created with all the reasons associated with the deteriorating impact of Gramshilpi and the hurdles faced by volunteers.

We’re happy and proud to see that the management team, on the basis of our report and recommendations, made quick changes in the outlook of the program concept, altered the style of operations, reviewed past practices and made them more relevant in today’s time.

It’s endearing to see how our role as an arch brought about small changes in perspective and have landed new vigor, passion and higher levels of commitment in everyone associated with Gramshilpi!

While primary school enrolment has achieved a status of 96.9% children enrolled (ASER 2016), it’s a long road ahead to say that these children are well-educated. Under pressure for a good result elementary schools continue to promote children to the next class overlooking their undeveloped capacity to grasp the curriculum.

In order to address this rampant problem ARCH has undertaken a research study to understand the current learning level assessment of students using tools developed by experts from the educational field.

Our study aims to collect quantitative data on learning level of students for language and mathematic skills, comparing learning level of rural and urban students, gathering challenges and reasons for low learning level of students and using this data to design interesting interventions to improve the learning.

So far more than 40 government aided and corporation schools have been covered where students from 1st to 5th grade are enrolled and studied upon. Students who are found to be weak in studies and below the class average are given special training and tutoring in a fun and play-way method to help improve their skills.