by ABFRLadmin | September 25, 2024
How ABFRL’s Jan Kalyan Trust lead the charge against Dengue with a Grassroots Revolution in Karnataka
The streets of rural Karnataka, especially on the outskirts of Bengaluru are familiar to most of our factory staff. Here, the rhythm of life hums along with a kind of deliberate monotony, where factory shifts and domestic routines mark the passing hours. But just beyond the surface of this everyday existence, a different kind of urgency has taken root—one that has little to do with the churn of machinery and weaving of fabrics our manufacturing workforce is accustomed to. It is a sense of urgency born from an invisible threat: dengue fever. The disease, transmitted by mosquitoes, finds its most fertile breeding ground in the corners and crevices of ordinary lives, making its presence known through sudden fevers, debilitating pain, and in the worst cases, death.
Amidst this invisible struggle, the employees of Aditya Birla Fashion and Retail Limited (ABFRL) have embarked on a mission that takes the protection of their community into their own hands. This initiative was led by the ABFRL Jan Kalyan Trust, a dengue awareness campaign that has turned factory employees into frontline warriors, not against a visible enemy, but against ignorance and indifference. This is a story of quiet perseverance, of unexpected solidarity, and of a corporate entity empowering the health of local communities in the lanes and bylanes of rural Karnataka.
Knowing is the First Line of Defense
For years, dengue has been more than just a seasonal headline in Karnataka; it is a pervasive threat lurking in stagnant water and unchecked environments. Even as of this year, the state is dealing with its worst dengue outbreak in a decade, with 24,521 cases reported as of 29th August, that have led to 12 deaths so far (Source). This public health crisis turns into a personal battle for those infected, fought with fevers and exhaustion. But for the average factory worker, it had long been a distant worry—something to be mindful of but not necessarily something to engage with.
Enter the Aditya Birla Fashion and Retail Jan Kalyan Trust, which recently rolled out a campaign that covered 35 peripheral villages around its key manufacturing units. The strategy was deceptively simple: equip the employees with knowledge and tools and send them out into their own communities. The locations—Haritha (HAL), Europa (EGL), Classic Menswear (CML), and English Apparels (EAL)—became hubs of a grassroots health movement.
Conceptualized by ABFRL’s CSR Head, Shubhasish Chakraborty, AVP, Corporate Sustainability and Muniraju C., Asst. Manager, Sustainability – the program to convert our factory staff into public-health micro-influencers in their community was executed on-ground, under the guidance of Dr. Naresh Tyagi, Chief Sustainability Officer, ABFRL.
The Mechanics of Hope: Training and Mobilization
The campaign’s success hinged on its meticulous groundwork. Qualified doctors from ABFRL’s manufacturing medical team led a day-long training session for Level 1 leaders. These leaders, in turn, disseminated the information to their peers, creating a cascading effect of knowledge sharing. It was a stark contrast to the usual top-down approach that so many corporate initiatives suffer from. Here, information didn’t feel like an imposition; it felt like a gift, something of immense value being passed down through the ranks.
With pamphlets in hand and facts on their minds, over 4,000 employees took to the streets, dedicating a staggering 20,435 volunteer hours. Each employee became a bridge, linking corporate initiative with community welfare. They visited homes, talked about the dangers of stagnant water, the importance of using mosquito nets, and recognizing early symptoms of dengue. They did this not out of obligation but out of a newfound sense of purpose. Each of them reached 15-20 families, meaning that in total, the campaign touched thousands of lives. This effort was bolstered by the presence of Medical and Welfare officers from the Factory HR Teams, ensuring the process was diligently and precisely followed.
Shared Fears, Shared Futures: The Human Connection
In a way, the dengue awareness campaign acted as a mirror to society’s deeper fears and hopes. While the pamphlets spoke about disease prevention, the conversations inevitably veered towards broader anxieties—about healthcare, about the future, about safety. For many factory workers, the act of engaging their neighbors in these discussions broke the wall of isolation that often exists in tightly scheduled lives. It wasn’t just about spreading awareness; it was about reclaiming a lost sense of community.
A New Ethos of Community Empowerment Emerges
It’s easy to view this dengue awareness campaign as just another corporate social responsibility (CSR) activity, a box to be ticked in an annual report. But the ethos driving this initiative runs deeper. Shubhasish saw the campaign not merely as a way to combat dengue but as a means to align corporate identity with human values. “At ABFRL, we believe that our employees be social ambassadors,” Shubhasish said. “By involving them in this campaign, we’re investing in more than health awareness—we’re investing in community, in trust, in the idea that corporations have a role beyond profit.”
Finding Purpose in Unexpected Places
The dengue awareness campaign may not have the dramatic flair of a blockbuster public health campaign. There are no celebrity endorsements, no glossy billboards and no flashy commercial films. Because perhaps that’s where its real power lies—in the quiet, earnest determination of ordinary people choosing to care and put in that extra effort for the safety of their communities. In the areas surrounding our factories, the employees of ABFRL are finding that the fight against dengue is not just about battling a virus. It’s about discovering the connections that bind us, about realizing that in the face of shared challenges, even the smallest acts of kindness and concern can ripple outward, creating a wave of change.
And so, in the quiet corners of these districts, beneath the surface of factory work and daily grind, there is a different kind of industry at play. It is the industry of hope, one that turns employees into educators, workers into leaders, and companies into communities. Through this campaign, the ABFRL Jan Kalyan Trust is stitching together a healthier fabric of society, one thread at a time.
