Bhubaneswar: Tata Steel Mining Limited (TSML) in collaboration with Tata Steel Foundation (TSF), the CSR arm of Tata Steel, has launched project ‘Aakanksha’ with an aim to uplift the living standard of the Particularly Vulnerable Tribal Groups (PVTGs) around its mine in Sukinda, in Jajpur district of Odisha, by promoting education for their children.
Twenty such students, 10 from each of the tribes of Juanga and Mankidia, have been identified this year to be enrolled under the project Aakanksha in Sansakar public school at Rahani under Kankdahada village of Dhenkanal district. This initiative will ensure a positive societal change since a many of these two tribes have never been to schools or have been drop-outs eventually.
Speaking on the initiative, Sushanta Mishra, Senior General Manager (Mines), Tata Steel Mining said “The project will focus on the holistic development of the students and mainstream them to ensure they grow beyond their limitations and emerge as change-makers in the days to come”.
Main activities of the project include identification of the children with the consent of their parents, facilitating admission in the selected school, arrangement of the logistics, academic and hostel fees, arrangement of free-medical services in nearby hospital, and tracking the performance of the children through a well-defined monitoring process.
The project intends to bring about education-induced, positive changes in the mind-set of these children so that they can emerge stronger and more confident to face the world and join mainstream academia eventually.