INDIACSR News Network
MANESAR: Spiritual Applications Research Centre (SpARC), a service wing of Brahma Kumaris recently organized a seminar on “Socio-Spiritual Responsibility and Sustainable Growth” on 27th April, 2013 at Brahma Kumaris Om Shanti Retreat Center (ORC), Manesar Gurgaon.
Though the concept of Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) is not new but the prime objective of this seminar was to throw light on the socio- spiritual aspect of corporate social responsibility and how Brahma Kumaris have achieved incredible results in various areas of serving the society by implementing these very principles of socio-spiritual approach. In the seminar, Brahma Kumaris showed a new dimension to answer various issues by demonstrating the importance of CSR in relation to spirituality and how to produce desired results, responsibly and ethically.
It was an excellent opportunity for the participants to explore
(a) Spirituality: Experience & discover your inner strength,
(b) Spiritual perspective of CSR: how the CSR results can be achieved by applying the deepest spiritual principles while on the field of action,
(c) ‘Case Study’: Brahma Kumaris’ unique model of CSR, working at the grass root level through its 18 Service Wings,
(d) The key challenges of CSR, sustainability and responsible business and emergence as mandatory impositions and opportunity of collaborative approach: understand and share the strengths and interests to meet the key challenges, together.
The seminar gave a common platform to CSR professionals; CSR torch bearers, decision makers in corporate & PSUs, Corporate Senior Executives in the field of CSR, Corporate affairs and HRD, Senior Government officials establishing frameworks for sustainable development, CSR facilitators from BMOs and research scholars in the field, to come together and share their views and experiences and to help them in discovering their inner strength to explore the spiritual perspective of CSR.
The seminar was blessed by the gracious presence of BK Brij Mohan, Secretary Brahma Kumaris and Chief Editor of Purity, BK Asha, Director of ORC and BK Ambika, National Coordinator SpARC from Bangalore. Dr. K. K. Upadhyay, CSR Head, and FICCI as Chief Guest, who delivered the Key Note address to set the context of the seminar. Rusen Kumar, Founder and Director, IndiaCSR (India’s Largest CSR News Network) was also present on the occasion.
The program began with an introductory session. There were professionals from almost every field be it CSR experts, managers, NGO owners or research scholars. Next, the inauguration ceremony was done with lighting of lamp accompanied by heart touching peace melodies by BK Hridayanka.
BK Chandrani from Bangalore gave a crisp briefing on agenda so as to make the scenario clear and organized. Adding to it, brother BK Brij Mohan gave the keynote address. He shared “CSR is about giving back to the society. It is not the funding but the re-funding that is the purpose” .
BK Asha shared valuable insights on spirituality in the context of CSR. The seminar was taken to new heights with the presence of honorable chief guest- Dr. K. K. Upadhyay, Head, CSR – FICCI. He threw light on CSR from the company bill’s perspective.
Preceding the tea break was a deeply rejuvenating meditation session by BK Ambika.
BK Ranjana gave all a brief introduction about Brahma Kumaris and its wide-ranging service activities. After this, began the formal presentation series to make the professionals aware about the reach of the organization and its major activities all over the world.
BK Pradeep, BK Sushil, and BK Srinivas Raju made a detailed presentation about the social service activities matching the schedule VII of the CSR bill by the government, undertaken by Brahma Kumaris in a very brief and crisp manner. The major fields covered were, Women empowerment, Value Education for children and Youth development, Employability Skills training, Health, Solar Projects by Brahma Kumaris ,Disaster Management , Environment protection ,Green Earth projects, rural development and research done on the aspect of meditation in collaboration with DRDO, Ministry of Defence . In fact, these presentations projected that Brahma Kumaris, affiliated to UN- as a NGO having consultative status with ECOSOC AND UNISEF is not just a Spiritual Organization but is serving the society and doing a lot, silently, at the grass root level as their OSR (Organizational Social Responsibility) in each and every region of the country.
Audience who took out time from their busy schedules for us were then welcomed for a Satvic lunch prepared by the BK sisters and brothers at ORC with pure love and dedication.
Post lunch, we had a really informative presentation from Mr. Rajit Pal Singh that gave us all new insights into CSR and most importantly cleared the air between what actually CSR is and what we perceive about the same.
Succeeding this brainstorming session, took place a panel discussion on “ Solutions Through Collaborative Approach”, facilitated by BK Balakishore from Hyderabad, and the participants of the forum were respected: Mr K.K. Upadhyay, FICCI, Mr Rajit Pal Singh, Reach Potential , Dr. S.P. Ram, CSR expert, Mr. Tapan Ray; L.T. Group. The hon’ble panelists shared their valuable views on Industry perspective, Government perspective, PSU perspective, Social perspective and Socio- Spiritual perspective and collaborative approach, respectively. One thing that was commonly shared by all was to come forward and have partnership with Brahma Kumaris in implementation of their CSR projects because of proven track record of working at the grassroots level in urban and rural areas across India and producing desired results for the last 75 years, working responsibly and ethically with great integrity through Brahma Kumaris’ 8500 centers in India and abroad in 137 countries with approximately nine lakh members serving the society.
The open house discussion was really informative and showed an overview perspective of corporate social responsibility. After this, we all got a wonderful opportunity to receive love filled blessings from BK Ambika and BK Asha.
In the concluding session, all the participants were given opportunity to come forward and express their views, experiences or whatever they were able to extract from the seminar. There was overwhelming response from all. Some gave their vote of thanks, some narrated poems, some just added their point of view etc. In all the session ended beautifully and we hope to have touched many hearts through it. Another soul touching meditation session took place with the assistance of BK Rama and following that BK Ashok gave vote of thanks to all the participants.
The seminar could not have ended without distribution of tolis (sweets) and blessing cards, which is a custom at Brahma Kumaris, by Sister Ambika and Sister Asha.
The message of the seminar was clearly put across “You have the means – We have the reach”. Some of the corporates have shown ken interest for future collaborations with Brahma Kumaris in various CSR projects initiatives by them.
For more details on OSR projects by Brahma Kumaris please feel free to contact bksparc.csr@gmail.com
