The Magic of Making Life Possible - A Reflection

A couple of years back, as we reflected inward to capture our essence through a brand architecture exercise, we realized that as an organization, we were all about possibilities – creating, harnessing, and delivering them. Making life possible – with complete ease, joy, and grace for everyone associated with us – especially, our people, clients, and society.

As an organization, we have always been resolved to give back to the society and communities around us, fully cognizant of how pivotal they are in enabling us to grow – bolstering us with rich talent, resources, and a thriving socio-economic environment to help us flourish as a firm. It’s only natural that we have held our commitment to society as paramount.

Over the years, our resolve to enable our society and communities has strengthened, as has our CSR coverage comprising unique and powerful stories of regenerative and sustainable community development & nation building, women empowerment & child education, and embracing diversity & inclusion. While fully aware that there is always much more work to be done – more impact to be created, I feel it’s important to take a reflective pause and celebrate the possibilities we are helping create, and I’m delighted to share a few of these stories with my friends and network here.

Nation Building & Community Development

A majority of India still lives in our villages, and we believe that empowering them is the very bedrock of nation building. We have recently instituted SGA’s ‘Vocal for local’ program that supports agri-entrepreneurs, artisans, and rural women-led startups by giving them in SGA and its people, a platform to showcase their nutritious and eco-friendly products to supplemental visibility and income opportunities. We are also supporting the infrastructure development of a Zilla Parishad School at Sawangi village that will benefit 120 students and enable them to access safe and quality education – however, what we are most proud of is having adopted one village to develop in a holistic manner over the period of the next four years, as part of our ‘Model Village Initiative’. Under this regenerative project, we will enable the community to become self-reliant and sustainable by enhancing livelihood opportunities through water and soil conservation practices, promoting climate resilient agricultural practices, providing quality education, promoting good health, and ultimately building an institution which will take care of the development process post project.

Women Empowerment & Child Education

Led by our irrefutable belief that a more equitable society can only be achieved through education-led empowerment, we have endeavored to support even more marginalized children and women through our association with NGOs like Santulan, Mahatma Gandhi School, Isha Vidhya, and our accomplished partners at Rotary Club of Bibwewadi. However, of special note is our engagement with the NGO, Aatmaja, wherein we have taken it upon ourselves to sponsor the education of 30 extremely bright and talented girls from marginalized backgrounds for the entire duration of their studies. Not only that, but we have also resolved to offer them industry exposure, and a chance to break out of generational poverty by enabling them to find appropriate employment opportunities so they can thrive and make life possible in their own unique ways.

Embracing DEI, No Holds Barred

As SGA experiences accelerated business growth, we are extremely mindful of ensuring that our organization is a vibrant, safe-space for talent across the spectrum – that we hold the values of diversity and inclusion sacrosanct and ensure to build a culture where great talent, irrespective of gender flourishes and thrives. To enable this, we have recently instituted a diversity council that has taken upon itself, ambitious targets to bolster increased women representation across levels, including the board and senior management. For us though, the buck doesn’t stop there. We understand that the remit of diversity and inclusion is beyond just the aforementioned – that it encompasses many sections of our society that are deprived of living life with dignity including sexual minorities. To address this inequity, we are proud to support ‘Project Revive’ wherein we have partnered with PeriFerry & Solidarity Foundation to support the upskilling of 10 transgender candidates who aspire to pursue a career in the IT sector. We have also instituted a gender sensitization program to educate and instill awareness and empathy in our people led by renowned activists from the community.

To imbue our cherished goal of looking beyond ourselves and making our society and communities a part of our growth story, we have instituted a wonderful volunteer program, ‘Donate a Saturday a Year’ to inspire our people to engage with children belonging to families of quarry workers to teach them critical computer skills. To weave all our social impact stories into a resilient narrative of creating impact where it matters, we have engaged our talented CSR Manager, Madhura, who is the custodian of our most prized aspiration – to walk the talk of making life possible for each and every person we are associated with.

Finally, meaningful impact, we all know, is always a work-in-progress, and as dualities go, our world encapsulates great beauty and stifling imbalances, both existing together. Through our social impact programs, we at SGA, are trying to harness the beauty of our resolve and commitment to make an enduring impact towards our society at our core – guided unfalteringly by the magic of possibilities, enjoying our mission, every step of the way!

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