UPES CSR EDUDHURMA impacts communities in Dehradun

UPES runs four projects under its CSR EDUDHURMA policy – Protsaahan, Utkarsh, Dronasthali and Utthan – which aim to elevate the lives of citizens and communities around its Bidholi campus

UPES has impacted the lives of over a hundred families, students from underprivileged backgrounds, government teachers as well as local schools in Dehradun under its CSR EDUDHURMA initiative.

EDUDHURMA stands for Education for Developing Humans for Righteousness and Mindful Actions.

It is UPES’ CSR policy and it aims to elevate the lives of the citizens and communities by building a better place to live a blissful, purposeful life.

As part of EDUDHURMA, UPES runs four projects: Protsaahan, Utkarsh, Dronasthali and Utthan.

Protsaahan

Project Protsaahan was launched in 2018 to help the underprivileged meritorious students of Purkal Youth Development Society (PYDS) Learning Academy, Dehradun, pursue higher education at UPES.

Protsaahan was institutionalized in 2019 and now supports two PYDS students every year.

The courses for which support is available include all programs of B.Tech., Integrated LLB, BBA and B.Des.

Under the project, UPES provides all costs, including academic and tuition fee, hostel charges, uniforms, laptops, one-time charges as well as the refundable security for the entire tenure of the course.

The annual bursary under this project is Rs 10 to 15 lakh per PYDS candidate. This includes a stipend of Rs 20,000 to be given to the candidate during his industry internship as per the curriculum.

Utkarsh

Project Utkarsh aims to achieve overall progress of the society through holistic education to the neediest segment of the society.

The project aims to support overall development of 14 local schools, which include eight RPVs, one Gurukul, one Samvedna school (another of UPES CSR initiatives) and four schools in the village of Dhalani Koti.

The project will focus on developing school infrastructure, apart from providing academic and co-curricular activity support as well as career counselling sessions.

Dronasthali

Dronasthali aims to support the professional development of government schoolteachers.

It organized its first workshop on June 4-5, 2021, on “WhatsApp – A Tool for Teaching and Learning” for elementary school (Rajkiya Prathmik Vidhyalaya – RPVs) teachers and principals.

Over 30 primary teachers from 15 schools of Dehradun participated, majority of whom found the workshop effective and were satisfied with the activities, the trainers’ knowledge and preparedness as well as their content delivery.

The project next plans to set up a Centre of Excellence for Teachers’ Development (CoETD) which shall provide training to teachers to strengthen the human resource pool that will contribute to raising the standards of government school education.

It aims to achieve this by developing the digital and technical skills of the teachers so that they can teach students through a blended learning model in virtual spaces.

Utthan

Utthan is about the application of knowledge in the local community, to harness the scarce resources to their optimum level, raising the bar of development and to light up self-confidence of individuals.

Utthan has impacted close to 155 families so far by focusing on community development in and around Dehradun.

They have held three medical camps, distributed ration kits to villagers and been listed in the Unnat Bharat Abhayaan. They have managed to capture basic data, sensitise the villagers towards development, hold trust building exercises and identify various projects in consultation with stakeholders.

Utthan ultimately plans to co-create a gram panchayat that will have the potential to undertake sustainable development, create local opportunities, higher capacities for governance, and a lively community to tackle current and future challenges.