OREANDA-NEWS. July 15, 2015. Throughout the year, @Ford Online will highlight winners of the 2014 Global Diversity and Inclusion Award.  Teams and individuals from around the globe are being recognized for demonstrating the Go Further spirit to bring diversity, inclusion and the One Ford commitment to life at Ford Motor Company.  Following is a story from one of the winners.

According to Henry Ford, “The gifted man bears his gifts into the world, not for his own benefit, but for the people among whom he is placed; for the gifts are not his, he himself is a gift to the community.”  

The Lighthouse Community Service team’s actions resonate the thoughts of Henry Ford and has won them a  2014 Diversity and Inclusion Award in the Leading the Way category.  The team conceived a unique Community Service Program, called Lighthouse Women Empowerment, that aimed to reduce the school dropout rate among girls by addressing the barriers to successfully completing their education.   

Lighthouse identifies the barriers below and worked to address some of the issues:

    • How to increase the girls’ interest in studies
    • How to encourage financially and morally supportive parents
    • Lack of motivated teachers
    • School facilities that were not conducive to education

The Ford Lighthouse team’s vision was by 2017 to make a positive and significant impact on more than 1,500 women through initiatives that help them acquire education, life skills, financial independence and the confidence required for success.

This team adopted two schools in Kannagi and Mylai (Chennai) through an NGO (Kalanjiyam), and Lighthouse core team members provided support by:

    • Increasing awareness on the importance of education for girls through awareness sessions and constant mentoring
    • Counseling the parents and arranging for life skills and livelihood through some small business setup
    • Constantly interacting with teachers on how they can be more motivating
    • Fulfilling critical needs related to school facilities

The team completed a pilot in 2014 and is now extending this program for these two same schools, and plans to expand to more.  The results of the team’s efforts were quite impressive.  They were able to: 

    • Provide monthly awareness sessions for 313 girls to improve awareness on education, safety, health, personality development and more
    • Sponsor a college education for seven girls
    • Sponsor school kits for 55 girls, including newspaper subscriptions for all
    • Cover the cost  of daily tuition for 10th- and 12th-grade girls
    • Provide dedicated mentoring to the girls

Support to the girls’ parents included: 

    • Life skill trainings  for five to 10 parents
    • Livelihood support  for 25 parents
    • Monthly counseling sessions

Through the efforts of this team, teachers benefited from monthly awareness training sessions.  Significant enhancements were made to the school facilities, including painting, updated lighting, restroom renovations, new green boards and new sporting equipment. 

This dedicated team really did Go Further to provide support to the girls to help them and their families obtain the tools needed to succeed in their educational endeavors.   

“It is indeed a privilege and honor for us to win the Diversity and Inclusion awards. These awards are really encouraging to every one of us, as it gives us more opportunities to share and learn from each other,” said R Srikanth, director, Service Centre Operations, Global Business Services.

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