Romax India visits the Yusuf Meherally Centre to support the learning and development of high school children in impoverish areas

In February this year, our Romax India office visited the Yusuf Meherally Centre, a voluntary organisation that predominantly works towards mainstreaming rural development.

The Centre was started in 1961, in the memory of Yusuf Meherally, a popular socialist leader and former mayor of Bombay. It was formally inaugurated in 1966, by the then Vice- President of India Dr. Zakir Hussain, the organisation is chaired by its founder, Dr. G.G. Parikh, a prominent socialist leader. In its initial years, the Centre worked towards promoting national integration, addressing problems of urbanisation and later organised various cultural and intellectual activities.

The organisation’s work has helped empower various impoverished communities, who suffer from a lack of opportunity. The Centre focuses in health care, education, empowering women and Adivasis (tribal), employment generation and relief and rehabilitation to victims of natural calamities.

Yusuf Meherally Centre branches work with underprivileged people and children through their presence all over India in different states. Romax employees were able to link up to the Centre for their latest CSR efforts which involved conducting activities at the Adivasis (Tribal) Children’s’ Education, a Centre that started Bhanuben Pravin Shah High School in 1993. The Centre observed that Adivasi children had to migrate with their parents, who found work in brick kilns and coal mines, denying them access to education. As a result, they concluded that making education accessible to Adivasi children was imperative to remove them from this migratory cycle. Romax’ employees not only contributed financially to Adivasis (Tribal) Children’s’ Education but spent a day with them through fun activities, making them understand the importance of hygiene and most importantly sharing various career options to shape their career, aligned with the objectives of Yusuf Meherally Centre.

Our CSR team conducted 3 sessions at the YMC school which included:

• 1st session was with Grade 5th – 6th where the children were involved in a team drawing competition followed by some fun activities.
• 2nd one with Grade 7th – 8th on importance of hygiene – eating habits, personal and environmental. Where our team explained about some do’s and don’ts on hygiene.
• 3rd session was with Grade 9th and 11th on career guidance, where our team described various career options for different types of personalities.

All the activities were great fun and learning, both for students and our team! The school children and the committee are a fantastic example of true demonstration of strong determination!

We also had the opportunity to meet with one of the founding members Dr. G G Parikh (96 and still counting!), who is also an active Chairman of YMC. We had some enlightening conversations with this socialist, whose motto to run this organization is promoting education, rural development and encourage the community to be self-reliant.