India Inc comes together to bat for change at Salaam Bombay Foundation’s Corporate Change Maker Tournament
Aid
gathered through the Corporate Change Maker Tournament to be used to fund the
training of students from Salaam Bombay Sports Academy
by Shrutee K/DNS
Mumbai, 06th December ‘19: At a time when actively involving
employees in a company’s CSR activities is the latest norm, Mumbai’s historic Oval
Ground witnessed a special event of the kind on Friday. The Corporate Change Maker Tournament organised by NGO Salaam
Bombay Foundation saw as many as 120 employees from 10 of the biggest names
from India Inc including Tata Realty, Trent Ltd, IndoStar, CLP India, Team
Global, Monk Media, Kaya Clinic, NSFO, Investec and ELP, coming together to play league format cricket
matches. The aid gathered through the tournament will be used directly to fund
the training of students from the Salaam Bombay Sports Academy. The Sports
Academy empowers the city’s underprivileged children by providing them
experiential platforms of learning through high-class training and performance
opportunities. It is run by eminent professionals in their respective fields
with a team of assistant coaches.
The event resembled a sporting carnival that was superbly managed
by 15 alumni of the Salaam Bombay Sports Academy. It brought together different
people from varied backgrounds on one platform to celebrate sportsmanship. Some
of the highlights of the tournament, other than the nail-biting matches, included
the warm interactions between the corporate players and the Salaam Bombay
Sports Academy students along with health and nutritional-related fun
activities in association with sporting partners Gold’s Gym.
The finals of the Corporate Change Maker Tournament will be
held on December 13 and the winner of the tournament will play with Salaam
Bombay Sports Academy’s cricket alumni at the iconic Brabourne Stadium on
January 31, 2020. The grand final will be witnessed by an enthralling audience
of over 2500 students from the BMC schools.
The Corporate Change Maker Tournament began last year with
just three corporate teams competing. This year, the number more than doubled
with several other companies putting their best foot forward to encourage the
development of sports among children from resource-poor backgrounds. What sets
the event apart is the fact that unlike other corporate tournaments, the Corporate
Change Maker will not simply focus on the competitive spirit. It instead aims
to merge the country’s enormous love for cricket with a social cause.
More importantly, participating companies are not just
sponsoring the initiative or donating money. They are encouraging their
employees to personally engage at the grassroots level and offering them a
special experience. Incidentally, such initiatives are known to work well in
creating a positive environment for the company’s growth as well.
Speaking about the event, Gaurav Arora, VP, Salaam Bombay
Foundation said,
“At the Salaam Bombay Sports Academy, we have always viewed sports as a
medium of change. We believe it is the best avenue to teach life skills like
leadership, discipline, teamwork etc to the youth. Our focus has always been on
giving them the chance to experience the power of the playground and empowering
them. In the recent past, we have managed to take the sports to more than 6,000
adolescents across Maharashtra.”
About Salaam Bombay Foundation: Salaam Bombay Foundation (SBF) is dedicated to
keeping children tobacco-free by empowering them to refuse tobacco and become
change agents in their communities. To make this vision a reality, SBF works at
the individual, community, and policy levels. SBF adopts a holistic approach to
designing its programs based on an understanding that tobacco addiction is a
result of multiple factors: low self-esteem, lack of refusal skills, inability
to deal with peer pressure, alongside societal norms, industry practices, and
tobacco control policies.www.salaambombay.org. With this understanding, SBF’s work focuses on four
program areas:
Empowering
children to refuse tobacco and become change agents
Engaging
policymakers and administrators to support tobacco control policies
Increasing
public awareness on the harms of tobacco via mass media campaigns
Building
capacity of local leaders to join the tobacco control movement
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