Under the CSR project, SBI General has funded the construction of 15‘safe space’ restrooms for girls around schools in rural districts of Maharashtra. These restrooms along with the 5 built last year will be used by over 10,000 girls in the coming five years. This will have a two-fold impact: not only will it create a sense of ownership and qualitative change in their hygiene habits, but also increase the attendance of girls at the schools thereby enabling them to complete their education. In addition to this, special workshops on hygiene and sanitation were also conducted for the girls. Going forward, the goal for SBI General and Learning Space Foundation is to ensure that every school in rural Maharashtra has a safe space restroom. SBI General Insurance has partnered with Palghar based NGO, Learning Space Foundation (LSF) for this project.
Shefali Khalsa, Head – Brand & Corporate Communication, SBI General Insurance said, “At SBIG, we follow a defined CSR strategy which focuses on various areas and segments. One of the key focus areas is education for the underprivileged. Contributing to this area aiming at girl students’ education, hygiene and wellbeing, we had initiated this project. In this region, what really stood out to us was the very high school drop-out rates of adolescent girls from agricultural and tribal communities. One of the main reasons for drop-out was the lack of sanitation facilities at Zilla Parishad Schools”.
She added, “We are hopeful that our contribution and this CSR initiative will support some bit of drop-outs and will enable girl students to continue their education.”
Besides giving access to sanitation facilities, through partnership, the girl students were also trained and encouraged to embrace menstrual hygiene practices.
