Jindal Stainless Ltd., one of the largest stainless steel conglomerates in India, recently added a family planning intervention to their corporate social responsibility program. Jindal Stainless Foundation invested 819,500 Indian rupees (US $12,800) for a project aiming to reach 1,000 beneficiaries with better family planning information and counseling services.
Advance Family Planning local partner Pathfinder India met with the head of corporate social responsibility, Rajiv Williams, for a series of discussions beginning in mid-2016. In August of 2016, he invited the Pathfinder India team to visit their plant in Hisar in Haryana state to better understand the social activities that the Jindal Stainless Foundation carries out under their program.
Pathfinder saw an opportunity to integrate family planning counseling into the foundation’s existing “Save the Girl Child” program. This flagship program addresses the imbalanced child sex ratio in Haryana, where Jindal Stainless is based. According to the 2015-16 National Family Health Survey-4, the local sex ratio at birth is 836 females per 1,000 males. The program produces awareness activities and encourages inter-personal communication about valuing girls. Pathfinder India advocated that counselors trained for the “Save the Girl Child” program also be trained to provide family planning counseling when they make village visits.
Pathfinder’s advocacy over several meetings yielded results. On June 5, 2017, Jindal Stainless Foundation signed a memorandum of understanding with Pathfinder India to enhance awareness of family planning over the course of one year (June 2017 - May 2018). As part of the project, Pathfinder will support the foundation to hire and train one female and male counselor and develop information, education, and communication materials. Counselors will provide couples with quality family planning counseling services and conduct family planning outreach activities in communities surrounding the company’s plant in the Satroad region of Hisar.
Pathfinder is supporting Jindal Stainless Foundation in making this intervention a success, so that they can advocate for more investment and broader reach at the beginning of the next financial year.