Sightsavers bags the prestigious HCL Grant 2018 for Education from Home Minister Sri Rajnath Singh

Sightsavers has been running its Inclusive Education Programme in five states of India to mainstream visually impaired and blind children into the existing education system.

At a power packed ceremony at the HCL campus in Delhi-NCR, Sightsavers received the HCL award of 5 Crore INR for the extensive work on Inclusive Education in Rajasthan, Bihar, Jharkhand, Odisha and Madhya Pradesh.

The Honourable Union Home Minister Rajnath Singh gave away the coveted award to Sightsavers India CEO, Mr RN Mohanty. Mr Mohanty, received the award in the presence of Minister of State (Independent Charge) for Culture and Minister of State for Environment, Forest and Climate Change, Government of India, Dr. Mahesh Sharma, Founder & Chairman, HCL Shiv Nadar, CEO, HCL Corporation and Chairperson of the CSR Committee for the HCL Technologies Board Roshni Nadar Malhotra and President and CEO, HCL Technologies C Vijayakumar. Speaking at the event, the Honourable Union Home Minister said, “For a stronger India, government, civil society and India need to work in cooperation for the development agenda.”

The two other winners were Eleutheros Christian Society (Health) and Keystone Foundation (Environment).The third edition of the HCL Grant received over 3,499 registrations of NGOs and after an eight-month long process, the three winners were selected. Out of the initial applicants, 49 NGOs were selected for field investigation; wherein, a team of experts went to the project locations and evaluated the work being done by these NGOs on ground. Sightsavers experienced an extensive field visit by four different teams of HCL in the state of Rajasthan, Jharkhand, Bihar and Odisha.

“This is a big moment for us as an organisation as 3,349 NGOs applied for this grant and we had to go through an incredibly rigorous process to be in the top three (Education Category). With the help of the grant, Sightsavers India will be able to scale up its work for inclusive education,” said Mr RN Mohanty.

The Inclusive Education programme of Sightsavers prioritises technical support to Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan (SSA) for training and capacity building of general teachers to address education needs of the Children with Disabilities (CWDs) with special focus on children with visual impairment. The programme aims to demonstrate scalable approaches to strengthen systems and build a cogent institutional response. The thematic focus of the programme is to expedite quality of learning outcomes for the CWDs and secure enablement through teacher training, ICT promotion, technical, infrastructural and community support.