Bharti Foundation Wins The 'Global CSR Awards 2011-2012'

Online, February 27, 2012 (Newswire.com) - Bharti Foundation, the philanthropic arm of Bharti Enterprises, was awarded the 'Global CSR Award' in the category of Corporate Social Responsibility - Education at the "Blue Dart World CSR Day presents Global CSR Awards powered by Star News".

The award was presented by the World CSR Day and recognized Bharti Foundation's flagship initiative, the Satya Bharti School Program for its noteworthy contribution towards free 'quality' education for underprivileged and disadvantaged children in the villages of India, with special focus on the girl child. Mr. Anjani Rathod, COO, M-Commerce, Bharti Airtel Ltd., received the award on behalf of Bharti Foundation from Dr. Veerappa Moily, Hon'ble Union Minister of Corporate Affairs, Government of India and Dr. Bhaskar Chatterjee, Director - General and CEO, Indian Institute of Corporate Affairs.

Bharti Foundation was set up in 2000 as the philanthropic arm of the Bharti Group of Companies to help bridge the education divide between urban and rural India by contributing towards the education sector in a meaningful and substantial way. With this intent, the Satya Bharti School Program was launched in 2006 to deliver free quality education to underprivileged children in the rural pockets, focusing primarily on the girl child and children belonging to the minority communities.

The program aims at holistic development of children, helping them grow into confident, employable and socially responsible citizens. Currently, more than 33,000 children are enrolled in 253 Satya Bharti Schools (including 236 primary, 12 elementary and five senior secondary schools) across six Indian states. The intent of the program is to develop scalable, sustainable and replicable components of quality education to make a large scale impact on the education sector as a whole.

Bharti Foundation has received various other national and international acclaims for its social initiatives in the past. The recent ones among them have been the Economic Times Corporate Citizen of the Year Award 2010, the World Education Award for 'Best Public Choice Award for Innovative Practices in Education' at the World Education Summit 2011 and the Indian Education Awards 2011 in the category of 'Best NGO for Excellent Work in Elementary Education'.

Some other awards which have been won by Bharti Foundation in the past include the Asian CSR Award for 'Support and Improvement of Education' in 2008, the Social and Corporate Governance Award 2009 for 'Best Practices in Corporate Social Responsibility', the Indian NGO Awards 2008 in the 'Regional Winner- Large (North)' category and the Golden Peacock Award for Corporate Social Responsibility in 2006.

The Global CSR Awards, presented by the World CSR Day, acknowledges the social responsibility endeavors made by organizations in the field of education, health, poverty alleviation, community development, carbon footprint accounting, fair trade and supply chain, etc. The World CSR Day was founded by Dr. R. L. Bhatia to 'unite the world through responsible action' by motivating corporates and individuals worldwide to contribute towards social betterment.