Industrial Automation Magazine India

QuEST and NASSCOM Foundation launch the Resurgent Communities initiative

Published on : Friday 18-09-2020

To foster digital skills and entrepreneurship andhelp 2000+ residents of Mithun Reddy Layout, Bellandur become self-reliant.

Bengaluru, September 17, 2020: QuEST Global, a global product engineering and lifecycle services company, and NASSCOM Foundation have announced the launch of their Resurgent Communities initiative. The year-long initiative aims at helping the communities who lost their livelihood due to the Covid-19 pandemic to sustain themselves and thrive in the new normal. QuEST has partnered with NASSCOM Foundation as the first organisation from the industry to support a community under the Resurgent Communities initiative to help it become self-reliant. More than 2000 residents of Mithun Reddy Layout at Bellandur in Bengaluru will receive support through this initiative.

The Resurgent Communities initiative is divided into three phases spread across the next 12 months. The first phase aims at providing immediate relief by distributing ration kits to 400+ households and sensitising the community on how to co-exist and continue their day-to-day chores without being infected.

In the Reform phase, school-going children will be provided with education and at least one adult per household will be made digitally literate.

The third phase will enable the community to re-imagine their livelihoods by getting skilled or creating new, more robust micro-entrepreneurship. The initiative will also work towards creating intra and inter-community collaborations to create women self-help groups and community level associations, etc. The NASSCOM Foundation and QuEST will partner with an on-ground NGO – Smile Foundation – who will help both the organisations in executing this initiative.

The relief work started today and was marked by the presence of leaders from QuEST and NASSCOM Foundation, and volunteers from both organisations distributed relief kits to the residents.

Speaking at the occasion, Niketh Sundar, Chief People Officer, QuEST Global, said, "We are delighted to partner with NASSCOM Foundation to support the community at Mithun Reddy Layout, Bellandur, and enable them to become self-reliant. Education and skill development have now become the most important and powerful tools that play a critical role in shaping the lives of communities and their people. The Resurgent Communities program aims at the sustainable development of communities by providing them with digital skills, job opportunities, and entrepreneurship skills. Through such initiatives, our focus is to provide basic skills for the underprivileged, thereby creating opportunities to enhance their livelihood for a better tomorrow that will benefit the entire community. We are looking forward to associating with NASSCOM Foundation, where we can engineer a change for the communities around us."

Ashok Pamidi, CEO, NASSCOM Foundation, said, "The Covid-19 pandemic has posed challenges like never before, even though a lot of states and cities have lifted the lockdown, the marginalized communities continue to get disproportionately affected with loss of daily wage work and income. A study has shown that non-migrant workers may have an income drop of 57%. For India, with almost 22% of its population living in poverty with wages less than $2 a day, this can be devastating.