SCHOOL CHILDREN AND COMMUNITY MEMBERS SPREAD AWARENESS THROUGH QUIZ, FOLK SHOWS, RALLIES AND NUKKAD NATAK

TSRDS COMES TOGETHER WITH TCIF, JHARKHAND-STATE AIDS CONTROL SOCIETY AND NACS TO ORGANISE A NATIONWIDE “TRUCKER’S UTSAV” ON THE DAY

On the occasion of World AIDS Day, today, Tata Pipes, a flagship brand of Tubes SBU, Tata Steel Ltd, an initiative “Awareness on Aids” campaign was launched today. It is a two-day campaign to cover a host of prominent colleges and locations all across Kolkata.This includes St. Xavier’s College, Presidency College, Bethune College, Calcutta University, Jadavpur University, Kolkata Airport, City Centre, Forum to name a few.

The awareness programs, has involved children and community members to be the agents of mass awareness for preventing the spread of deadly HIV/AIDS virus. Various programs were undertaken across Tata Steel’s operational areas of Kalinganagar (Orissa), Lohandiguda (Chhattisgarh), and West Bokaro(Jharkhand),Sukinda (Orissa). The activities include hosting rallies, nukkad nataks, quizzes, distributing pamphlets, condoms, blood donation camps, stage shows , signature campaigns etc.

In addition, acknowledging the importance of contributions made by trucker’s community, the Tata Steel Rural Development Society (TSRDS) in collaboration with Transport Corporation of India Foundation (TCIF), Jharkhand State Aids Control Society and National Aids Control Society (NACS) organised a nationwide “Trucker’s Utsav”. Project Kavach which is an endeavour to arrest the spread of AIDS amongst the truckers community, was part of this utsav at Jamshedpur’s Transportnagar. It is an informal-infotainment event, which acts as catalyst for communicating behavior change messages to sizable groups in a fun, peer supportive context.

In Jharia, TSRDS collaborated with Mother Teresa High School, Jorapokor to organise a rally of senior students .More than 1,000 people gathered for the cause at the Tata Steel Gopalpur unit at Orissa The program included Signature Campaign Stalls, Folk shows on HIV/AIDS and High School rally.

Tata Steel is always recognized for contributing towards the global effort in fighting against HIV/AIDS and it is one of the first corporate house to have separate HIV/AIDS workplace policy and has bagged many national & international awards in this field. The programs undertaken by Tata Steel on the World AIDS Day are addition to the various activities undertaken by Tata Steel.

Since early 1990’s Tata Steel has been instrumental in spreading awareness and address the concerns of HIV/AIDS, by reaching across to every corner of the country though various programmes. On an ongoing basis Tata Steel has been running Targeted Intervention (TI) projects, establishing Community Care Centre (CCC) for People Living with HIV/AIDS (PLHA) and promoting HIV testing through Integrated Counseling & Testing Centre (ICTC) were few of the ongoing initiatives of Tata Steel Rural Development Society (TSRDS).

About Tata Steel
Established in 1907 as Asia's first integrated private sector steel company, Tata Steel Group is among the top-ten global steel companies with an annual crude steel capacity of over 28 million tonnes per annum (mtpa). It is now the world's second-most geographically-diversified steel producer, with operations in 26 countries and a commercial presence in over 50 countries. The Tata Steel Group, with a turnover of US$ 23 billion in FY 10, has over 80,000 employees across five continents and is a Fortune 500 company. The Group’s vision is to be the world’s steel industry benchmark in “Value Creation” and “Corporate Citizenship” through the excellence of its people, its innovative approach and overall conduct. Underpinning this vision is a performance culture committed to aspiration targets, safety and social responsibility, continuous improvement, openness and transparency. In 2008, Tata Steel India became the first integrated steel plant in the world, outside Japan, to be awarded the Deming Application Prize 2008 for excellence in Total Quality Management.