Reps of PSUs, banks, other corps participate in ‘Corporate4Children’ meet by UNICEF

Special Correspondent

NewsBits.in

BHOPAL: The MP office of UNICEF on Tuesday organised a ‘Corporate4Children’ meet today to engage representative of various public and private sector companies as well as banks on the theme of mobilising action and resources for children in Madhya Pradesh.

Over 50 delegates from more than 40 public sector organisations, banks, companies, and institutions were part of the meet.

Uday Borwanker, Divisional Railway Manager, West Central Railways, Shammimudin, Managing Director of MP State Cooperative Diary Federation, Mahesh Shukla of BSNL, Rajeev Agarwal of Mandideep Industrial Association and Abhsihek Mohan Gupta, Pro Chancellor of Jagran Lake City University were prominent among those present.

Michael Juma, Chief, UNICEF said that the role of corporate sector was critical in advancing child rights.

This was particularly in designing innovative programmes to empower adolescents to delay early marriage and focus on receiving quality and inclusive education, as well as to reduce malnutrition and eliminate child labor of any form, he said.

Anil Gulati, Communication Specialist, UNICEF made a presentation on the efforts and challenges for children in Madhya Pradesh and made an appeal to the representatives to keep children first in their endeavours and have respect for child rights. He shared ideas wherein corporate can pitch in for children.

He also made an presentation an initiative ‘impact4nutrition’, which is an effort to mobilise private sector engagement on nutrition and Poshan Abhiyan. Around 25 corporate members present at the event showed interest and signed pledge to support impact for nutrition.

Uday Borwanker made a presentation on the efforts being done by West Central Railways for children and he said they will be more than happy to support UNICEF's effort for children including dissemination of key messages.

Mahesh Shukla of BSNL spoke on the support being extended by BSNL for child helpline and said that they will look into using messages of child rights on its mobile dialer tones.

Shammimuddin, Managing Director of MP State Cooperative Diary Federation spoke on their work and that they will look into integrating message of breastfeeding on milk packets. Pallavi Rao Chaturvedi of AISSECT and Balaji Rao, Deputy General Manager Central Bank of India spoke at the meeting.

Rajeev Agarwal of Mandideep Industrial Association spoke on the efforts being done by the association for supporting children. Similarly Jagran Lake City University Pro Chancellor Abhishek Mohan Gupta spoke on the efforts being done by University free of cost for educating girls and children.

Sagar Group, Vardham Textiles, Proctor & Gamble,HDFC Bank, Bhopal Smart City Company, AISSECT, Central Bank, Bank of Baroda and others spoke on the work being done by them and extended their support to UNICEF's effort, saying they will be happy to partner with UNICEF for supporting State initiatives for children.

Dr Swati Tiwari welcomed the participants and shared the objective of getting corporate reps together for children in Madhya Pradesh, and discussions were coordinated by Omnath Sharma of Catchup consultants in partnership with NGO Sky Social.