{"id":14746,"date":"2016-09-17T01:03:33","date_gmt":"2016-09-16T19:33:33","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/internshala.com\/blog\/?p=14746"},"modified":"2016-09-17T01:08:48","modified_gmt":"2016-09-16T19:38:48","slug":"csr-internship-bangalore-tatal-global-beverages-anub-christ-university","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/internshala.com\/blog\/csr-internship-bangalore-tatal-global-beverages-anub-christ-university\/","title":{"rendered":"CSR Internship in Bangalore at Tata Global Beverages – Anub from Christ University"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"csr-internship-in-bangalore-at-tata-global-beverages-anub-from-christ-university\"About the Author: <\/strong>Anub Geo Kurian\u00a0from Christ University, Bangalore,\u00a0shares his experience of a CSR internship where he delivered solutions to one problem after another and made a difference to the project.<\/em><\/p>\n

I did my internship at Tata Global Beverages (TGB), Hebbal \u2013 Bangalore for a period of two months. It was an incredible experience right from the interview\u00a0till the last day of my internship. I got the offer through my college placement team and was the only one to be selected for this internship from my college.\u00a0They were looking for a CSR project assist, and my profile (including volunteering experience with an NGO) was tailor made for the project.<\/p>\n

What I learned during\u00a0two months internship at TGB was a wealth of exposure when compared with\u00a0my previous two years work experience in corporate. My mentor was Chief Head (IR & CSR) for Tata Global Beverages, Mr Pratap Ramdas, who was a great person to work with. My project topic was \u201cTo create visibility for Tata initiatives in supporting NGO -Unnati which trains underprivileged youth\u201d. Initially, I thought\u00a0the project was to market and publicise CSR activities of Tata, but my mentor clarified it not to be the case. His ask was that whatever I\u00a0do to create visibility for Tata, should also benefit the NGO\u00a0and the underprivileged youth of the nation. And this was the real essence of the project – to chalk out strategies which would meet the objectives of all the stakeholders.<\/p>\n

Unnati (www.unnatiblr.org) is an NGO which trains underprivileged youth for 50 days in vocations like Retail and BPO, and places them in jobs\u00a0in different corporates. TGB had partnered with them to fund their\u00a0initiatives in transforming the youth. However, despite all the efforts, very few students knew of TGB’s involvement in the project. To address this,\u00a0I\u00a0came up with a\u00a0plan for volunteering platform\u00a0where\u00a0I created a set of topics (from Unnati syllabus) that were relevant to the training for underprivileged youth\u00a0and for which\u00a0the sessions could be delivered by TGB employees (Example : Marketing employee from TGB can handle session for retail students).\u00a0Through this, a direct exposure for TGB and its employees with the Unnati student community was made possible which resulted in great direct visibility.<\/p>\n

Another problem which I identified was that Unnati still followed traditional methods of teaching.\u00a0Handling 35 centres across India with their training and placement was a tough & time consuming task. Using\u00a0my skills of professional photography, I helped them in creating an online platform for learning. I\u00a0split each training module into topics\u00a0and covered the video of trainer delivering the same. Soon after the successful implementation of this project, the placement head approached me and I devised the same solution for grooming the\u00a0students across India for placements using pre-recorded videos which cut short the need for placement head\u2019s Skype chat with each centre that\u00a0took many days. The same strategy was used for\u00a0training the trainers also. Now you may think, I was\u00a0working hard for Unnati and overlooked TGB\u2019s need for visibility. NO! In all these videos\u00a0that\u00a0I made, I tagged small video clips of TGB as well\u00a0which ensured that every\u00a0single student or trainer watching these videos will know of TGB’s\u00a0involvement in the\u00a0initiative.<\/p>\n

Another issue they were facing was\u00a0of outreach in villages to get the students from there. Unnati volunteers and trainers found it very hard to convince the parents in villages to send their wards to Unnati centre for training. People were indifferent and unfriendly, and hence the task of outreach was not effectively delivered. For this, I\u00a0suggested to create an outreach module, which every trainer can use while they go for outreach in respective states. For this again my videography\u00a0skill helped me, I interviewed\u00a0successful Unnati alumni who were doing good jobs now.\u00a0The\u00a0interviews were\u00a0taken in their local languages and this content was included in the module and at the end we were able to get testimonials in 9 languages. This really helped volunteers in convincing rural folks\u00a0better. These\u00a0videos were also used for marketing and publicity of Unnati on\u00a0the internet and other medias. These videos also carried TGB branding\u00a0which created visibility even into the core community where they were working for change. \u00a0Another problem was the\u00a0high attrition rates among the students placed at jobs which lead to draining away of funds and efforts of TGB. I\u00a0did a small survey among 2013 batch Unnati students and the results were embarrassing showing that\u00a0more than 50% of students switched their jobs within 3 months for trivial\u00a0reasons. Students also complained that there\u00a0was no support from either TGB or Unnati after they got placed. Since they come from the rural and the underprivileged background, adapting to corporate culture was a problem which led to quitting one’s job for small issues like \u2018boss shouting\u2019. I thought there should be a permanent solution to this and came up with\u00a0the master piece of my internship – Alumni Mentorship Platform\u00a0for\u00a0recently placed Unnati students to be mentored by\u00a0Unnati alumni \u00a0who were into the job for continuously more\u00a0than one year. The unique thing was that we were able to allot mentors according to students’\u00a0native places\u00a0&\u00a0local languages which made student\u00a0open up more about\u00a0work place issues and get advice. This platform has\u00a0helped Unnati in creating a strong alumni connect, which in-turn can help them to get more students for training. The system was successfully implemented with the help of trainers and alumni after two months of hard work, and as an achievement TGB CSR head came and inaugurated the Alumni Mentorship program at Unnati.<\/p>\n

In conclusion, I would like to say that an internship should not be just for the\u00a0name sake. It should be proper delivery of assigned duties with efforts and dedication\u00a0and if you do that,\u00a0you will witness miracles. You have to brainstorm and think out of the box to arrive at some new creative ideas to solve business\u00a0problems. I think all my internship deliverables added value and benefited both my stake holders – Tata Global Beverages and Unnati students. For me, this internship was a tedious tough journey of 60 days where I worked day and night, and the gratification which came at the end of my journey was tremendous and delightful. Thank you .<\/p>\n

Editor\u2019s Note \u2013<\/strong>\u00a0Like Anub, if you are looking for a meaningful internship that counts,<\/em>\u00a0check out these internships<\/a>\u00a0on Internshala.<\/em><\/p>\n