COVID-19 Support

During the second wave of the pandemic, the public health infrastructure across the country had become overwhelmed. Ujjivan SFB stepped in to help and was involved in 33 projects, pan-India, benefitting the general public, healthcare, and ASHA workers. The projects were run under the aegis of hospitals and COVIDcare homes, in coordination with Central and State government bodies, and the scale of impact included 8 COVID-care homes and 22 hospitals, with a total of 3,80,000+ beneficiaries. The help that we extended was in the form of beds, bedspreads, oximeters, oxygen concentrators, oxygen cylinders, ITU beds, ventilator beds, PPE kits, gloves, mask, thermal scanners and other kinds of COVID safety gears for frontline workers. More than 534 healthcare workers and 676 ASHA workers were among the beneficiaries. The projects were executed in different ways – either directly by the bank or in partnership with organisations like CBCI Society, Bengaluru, and CMC Hospital, Vellore. For the former, we donated 6 ITU beds, while to the latter, we supplied 40-D Type oxygen cylinders.

Towards the beginning of the third quarter, the Bank shifted focus towards vaccinating the public, in consonance with the Government of India’s massive public vaccination programme. The Ujjivan Sanjeevani Kavach programme was launched in coordination with our regionlevel and branch-level teams to vaccinate our staff, their families, our customers and other members of the society. The programme was executed across 478 operational areas and we were able to facilitate 80,000 vaccinations through PHCs, UPHCs, government hospitals and private camps.

Disaster Relief

During the Yass cyclone, the Jaynagar region of West Bengal was severely affected. Teams from Ujjivan SFB’s Jaynagar branch reached out to affected families, assessed needs and provided help in the form of dry rations, plastic buckets, mosquito nets, etc.

In August 2021, there were heavy floods in the Tamluk and Panskura areas in West Bengal. While the state government provided relief in the most severely affected areas, we worked with government agencies to provide help in the form of dry rations, tarpaulin, phenyl liquid and mosquito nets, and thereby helped to check the spread of disease in the prevailing floodridden unhygienic conditions. We were collectively able to help more than 8,000 beneficiaries.

Education

Several initiatives have been undertaken to improve educational access for disadvantaged groups. These were:

• Partnered with Maithree Society, and adopted an education centre in Chennai, which works with children, who are categorised as persons with intellectual and developmental disability (PwIDD). The centre has 45 children with special needs, and they have purchased two smart boards with grants given to them.
• Helped the Maria Nivas School in Harihara, Karnataka, to set up an IT laboratory. We have donated 18 computers to the school, and this initiative will benefit the school’s 1,100 students.

Vocational Training

Ujjivan SFB regards the provision of skill-based training as a highly effective means of addressing the dual problems of youth unemployment and inadequate education. We, therefore, partner with several NGOs across the spectrum to get young people trained and readily employable.

• Through our skill development partner Cheshire Disability Trust, we were able to help 70 PWDs (People with Disability) in Karnataka. These PWDs were placed with Amazon, Fernster, TVS, R Process and Leepra Technologies. We continued the partnership with Cheshire in FY 2021-22 to empower 200 more PWDs at Jamshedpur and Mumbai locations.
• Our association with Divya Nur Foundation in Bhubaneshwar aims at empowering 100 unemployed youth by training them in basic computers, English language skills and retail industry domain knowledge, so that they can get placed with reputed retail firms.
• Our partnership with Savera society in Purnea, Bihar, hopes to make significant change in the lives of rural women by training around 50 women on techniques for manufacturing jute and banana fibre products including jute bags. This empowerment serves another noble social cause. By training more people in the making and use of such biodegradable products, we are also helping to build an alternate ecosystem for sustainable products.

Targeted help to PWDs

As a part of our partnership with Provision ASIA, we distributed 40 specially designed wheel chairs amongst the differently-abled community in Bengaluru. Our partner helped to identify needy persons who would be greatly empowered by the mobility they gained through wheelchair use, and could better support their families and themselves.

Community Development

In the hope of creating wider social impact, we partnered with Parinaam Foundation to execute the Chote Kadam programme, which is designed to effect change across multiple areas. Five civil projects, whose creation and implementation would enable different kinds of positive change, were commissioned in the states of Karnataka, Goa, Rajasthan, and Gujarat. The projects include:

• Educational institute renovation
• Healthcare institute renovation
• Garbage cleaning
• The project will impact more than 2,10,000 people

Financial Literacy Programme

Ujjivan SFB aims towards breaking India’s vicious cycle of generational poverty through holistic interventions focused on Social Development and Financial Independence for the unserved and under-served segments. Our aim is to empower communities by identifying their requirements for improvement, to collaborate and support them in the areas of healthcare, education, finance, livelihood and infrastructure support, to achieve their goals.

Diksha+ & Chillar Bank are classroom trainings spread across 21 states and Union Territories in 9 regional languages that have been designed to give lowincome families across India the knowledge and tools they need to save money and make informed financial decisions.

The Diksha Financial Literacy Programme is designed to empower women from low income families with the knowledge and tools they need to manage cash-flows, plan for the future and make informed, intelligent financial decisions.

As part of our FLP initiatives, Financial literacy training was imparted to 1.12 lakh customers through a mix of online and offline modes. The programme continues to play a crucial part in our efforts to drive digital inclusion, as we saw 26% of the attendees (from the underserved segments of society) availing digital platforms for loan repayment, with a significant number of customers opting for Setu app and Airtel Point.

Similarly, as part of Chillar Bank Program, an initiative designed to educate the children on the benefits of saving early and making long-term investments for the family; 3,253 children were trained across 200+ branches.

We crossed 1 Million beneficiaries ITD (11,28,659) (9,55,461 customer and 1,73,198 children) under Financial Literacy Program during FY-2021-22. 13,225 (12982 customer and 243 children) beneficiaries got access to Ujjivan SFB Products.