Our ValuesSocial Responsibility
We take our social responsibility very seriously
Corporate social responsibility has been the cornerstone of success from the time of Forest Essentials’ inception. Unlike a fad to follow, it has been inherent in the DNA of the company to give back to nature what we take from it, which is also the very premise of Ayurveda.
Three primary approaches to our Social Responsibility
From empowering local women through employment, sourcing clean drinking water for nearby villages, to manufacturing procedures which ensure we deliver a sophisticated product that is conscientious about the environment, we strive to give back to the society in every way possible.
As much as possible, we source our ingredients from local farmers who use environmentally sound farming practices. We also have an organic farm in our factory at Lodsi, Uttarakhand, to grow high quality plants and herbs. We are constantly looking at ways to reduce our carbon footprint by focusing on using renewable plant sources in our products. Our manufacturing facilities are world-class with pharmaceutical grade production standards and green factories by design.
Our factory, situated in the remote village of Lodsi, Uttarakhand, follows labour intensive processes. Being the only factory at the locale, it has provided employment opportunities and long term self-sustenance to the local population. Women have traditionally not been allowed to work and are even offered lesser job opportunities; by providing jobs to the local women, we are proud to have contributed to their economic and social empowerment.
We strongly encourage health and hygiene not only within the factory and work premises, but as a part of the lifestyles of our employees.
Hence, we provide supplies of products to our factory workers, such that hygiene practices may be inculcated within the daily regime of their families, and in the long term improve the quality of and standards of hygiene in the area.
A BETTER TOMORROWProject Paathshala
As an Indian company, we truly believe in the potential and grassroots empowerment of our large youth and rural population. Keeping this in mind, the education of a child is of utmost importance and what we seek to achieve through our support of the Paathshala initiative. As a partnership with Simple Education Foundation (SEF), a non-governmental organization in New Delhi in July 2016, we started Paathshala, our ‘One School-One Village’ project in rural Uttarakhand. Located in the hills of Tehri Garhwal, we’re currently working in a Hindi medium government high school in the tiny hamlet of Gular.
Empowering and securing the communities
A part of the CSR initiative of Forest Essentials, the program ‘Project Paathshala’ was started with a vision to give rural students the same kind of exposure and opportunities to a quality-learning environment as their urban counterparts. It focuses on the holistic growth and development of the entire school and is designed to empower the stakeholders (teachers, students and parent community) with knowledge, skills and mind-set needed to take ownership of the process of transformation inside the school. Along with the SEF Team, our endeavor has been to invest in the community, the parents and the role they play in shaping the students’ future. Working closely with the parents has given us a deeper understanding of their aspirations for their children, and has helped us streamline support for the community.
Under the Shiksha Main Meri Hissedari program, the students along with their teachers, design informative flyers for their parents. By the means of interactive activities, these flyers inform the parents of their basic rights and duties, which more often than not, people in and around these villages are unaware about. This way, everyone in the community prospers together and is informed enough to support one another.
Together with SEF, we work towards enabling the students to access external opportunities that help them experience the world beyond their villages. During the winter holidays, the school hosts a Winter Camp, which engages students in fun-learning, extra circular activities to engage and prosper better intra school and within the community. The Baal Mela serves as a platform for the students to perform for their friends, parents and teachers.
The school has introduced interactive ‘Computer Classes’ for the students, which gives them ample exposure to the digitizing world in today’s time and age. Here, they are taught from the very basics of MS Word, Open Office to preparing PowerPoint presentations. Through this initiative, our aim is to well equip the students so that they can continue their higher studies outside of the smaller towns, and be at par with students from metropolitan cities.