Born with the idea to improve the lives of people and make the world a better place, Amway in India is contributing to the social well-being through its programmes for children, visually impaired, victims of natural calamities, conservation of water and a lot more.

Amway India is a wholly-owned subsidiary of Amway with headquarters at Ada in Michigan, the United States. It is one of the largest direct-selling companies in the world with presence in over 100 countries and territories. Globally, Amway is a 57-year-old, $9.5-billion manufacturer and direct seller of high quality consumer goods. Amway started its social initiatives in India from 1996, much before the launch of its commercial operations which commenced in the year 1998.

Amway India (Amway) supports a comprehensive Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) programme covering a gamut of initiatives including water conservation and health support programme for the communities around the company’s manufacturing plant located in Dindigul district, near Madurai in Tamil Nadu. Amway also supports underprivileged children in the area of education, health and hygiene. As a key focus area, Amway has been working tirelessly towards the welfare of the visually impaired with a firm belief that education and knowledge is the key to the future.

National Project for the Visually Impaired
Amway started focusing on the visually impaired way back in 1999. The company’s first key initiative was to distribute Braille books, a key tool for the visually impaired, to 85,000 children across 12 states in India. Providing computer training to the visually impaired was started in the year 2008. Amway supports 15 computer centres across the country and benefits more than 1,000 students every year.

Beyond this, Amway has setup a BPO (business process outsourcing) in Madurai to provide employment to the visually impaired and has setup music
academies for the visually impaired in Chandigarh, Raipur and Guwahati. Amway has also launched an Androidbased mobile application Accessible
Reader.Amway has setup 31 Braille libraries across the country and also supported the digitization of Class XIIth educational material for the National
Institute of Open Schooling as well as select graduation and post-graduation educational material for the universities of Delhi, Mumbai and Hyderabad for the benefit of visually impaired students.

Project Sunrise
Under Project Sunrise, Amway supports less privileged children in the area of education, health and hygiene by working with more than 17 NGOs across the country. Some of the key projects include:
* A school support programme for students of five government schools in Delhi.
* A computer training centre for girl children in Bhubaneswar.
* A recreation centre, health centre and tailoring unit for girl children in Bhubaneswar.
* Supporting a charitable hospital in Vrindavan.
* Setting up and supporting a physiotherapy centre for the benefit of differently-abled in Ludhiana and Raipur.
* Computer training centres in Hubli and Salem.

Water Conservation Project
With an objective to improve the ground water level in Dindigul district, Amway has initiated a water conservation project in seven villages, in close proximity to Amway’s plant site. The project has benefited over 1,700 villagers based out of these seven identified villages. Amway India has appointed an organization, Green Venture, which is working in the area of water conservation to implement the project.

Village Health Programme
With an objective to provide quality health care to the underprivileged, Amway has launched a village health programme targeted at 26 villages in the Dindigul district. Amway has appointed Meenakshi Mission as the implementing partner of this programme. Under this programme, the hospital has been conducting 12 camps every month and a total of 144 health camps have already been organized till date. The treatment includes general health check-up, select pathological tests and medicines at zero cost to the beneficiaries.

Contributions to Support Relief Work during Natural Calamities
Amway contributed Rs 2 crore towards Tamil Nadu Chief Minister’s public relief fund to support the flood victims in the year 2015. In addition, Amway employees and distributors worked hand-in-hand to supply relief material to the affected during the flood. Amway worked with grassroot level NGOs and provided shelter to 36 families affected by the 2013 Uttarakhand floods. Amway also contributed to construct two blocks of an orphanage badly affected during tsunami in Tamil Nadu. The company has also made contributions to support relief work during the Gujarat and Japan earthquakes.

ANSHU BUDHRAJA, GM, AMWAY INDIA

CSR, An Opportunity To Bring In Social Innovation And Change

Our CSR initiatives are based on the belief that social responsibility is much more than the incurrence of cost or resource on a charitable / philanthropic act of social benefit. We see it as an opportunity to bring in social innovation and change. This belief is articulated through Amway’s vision of helping people live better lives. Our vision and founder’s principles guide us on how we do business and drive our behaviours around our employees, customers and neighbours in communities throughout the world.

When it comes to our commitment to corporate citizenship, we make a serious and concerted effort every single day of our lives to reach out and help people to improve their lives, moving up the living value chain where they currently are to where they aspire to be.

We have and always will believe in doing better and being better.