BeyondHeadlines Correspondent
New Delhi: On 26th February 2019, the top public servants, corporate leaders, HR and CSR professionals joined leaders from NGOs and volunteers for ‘iVolunteer Awards —2019’ to reward, promote and celebrate the most inspiring volunteers from across India.
India’s foremost social enterprise for volunteering; iVolunteer Awards in their seventh year, felicitated the finalists and winners in New Delhi for the first time.
iVolunteer Awards 2019 have been most special as not only pan India audience were in attendance but global guests from more than 30 countries witnessed the stories of Indian change makers.
According to Surbhi Tiwari, iVolunteer’s India Head of Marketing & Communications, “iVolunteer Awards are the only Indian platform that gives national recognition to social leaders and change-makers among youth, working professionals, NGOs and corporations, all together.”
She said, “iVolunteer Awards are a national statement for volunteering, relaying pan-India avenues of collective social change in India and the world. It is amazing to see powerful change-makers from across villages and cities. Last year, we reached out to almost 4 million people in India.”
“The 2019 iVolunteer Awards was special since it shared the day with Points of Light Global Summit on Corporate Volunteering. Points of Light is the world’s largest organisation dedicated to volunteering and with iVolunteer it brought together top professionals on corporate volunteering, CSR and HR in India with the leading providers of volunteering service from 30 countries spread across 5 continents.” said Mr Shalabh Sahai, convenor of iVolunteer Awards and co-Founder of iVolunteer.
“It was, therefore, a truly unique opportunity where the champions of volunteering in India had an audience of global change makers and opinion leaders”, he added.
India, a country of 1.2 billion people with stark contrasts between the neo-rich and the disadvantaged communities, had ‘seva’ traditionally embedded in its culture. However, volunteering and its contribution to nation-building had received minimal representation in the mainstream.
iVolunteer Awards, India’s sole volunteering award, aims to change this with a simple motto– ‘Celebrate, Reward and Promote Volunteering in India’.
There are five categories of awards and the names of the winners are written below along with the category they are chosen for:
Shishir Joshi received the coveted ‘Volunteer Hero’ award for his initiative ‘The Mumbai Plastic Recyclothon’ which involves voluntary participation of people across the region to make the community and city cleaner & healthier.
Anju Verma (16), received the Youth Champion award which conducts surveys in and around her hometown to gauge the number of children being deprived of education and help to get them enrolled in educational institutions.
Jasper Paul received the Youth Champion (Jury’s Special) award who has established a shelter for the elderly poor. He oversees the welfare of over 130 destitute members in terms of medical care, food, emotional support as well as of those working under him.
eVidyaloka Trust, which works towards creating an educated and empowered rural India, received the ‘Leader in Employee Volunteering’ award.
Mahindra & Mahindra Ltd, which works towards encouraging their employees to connect and help the underprivileged community became the winner of Leader in Employee Volunteering.
