Boys hostel facility at Lok Vidyalaya School in Lamdapura village near Savli

Schaeffler India continues rural community development in Savli, Aims to provide best in class education facilities to rural India

In line with its commitment to support community development, Schaeffler India, a leading industrial and automotive supplier, inaugurated the newly constructed Boys Hostel for Lok Vidyalaya school in Lamdapura village near Savli. The aim is to provide much safer and healthier educational environment to the under-privileged boys and girls and to expand their overall educational opportunities.

This is in line with their flagship CSR initiative ‘HOPE’ with a vision to make the school a light house for the others in the area. The inauguration was done by Harsha Kadam, CEO Schaeffler India and President, Industrial Business and Santanu Ghoshal, Vice President – Human Resources & Head – CSR, Schaeffler India.

The Lok Vidyalaya school was adopted by the company few years ago and the newly built Boys‘ Hostel can accommodate approximately 156 students. It is providing facilities that are at par with any modern urban schools. The hostel facility includes bunk beds for students with individual storage cupboards, a common dining hall, well-equipped kitchen and store rooms and proper common toilet facilities on each floor.

Sharing his thoughts Santanu Ghoshal added, “At Schaeffler, along with our business operations in the region, we deeply believe in contributingand making a positive impact in the societies around us in which we serve. People of these villages have become like a second family to us at Schaeffler India. While we had already previously built a girls hostel at the Lok Vidyalaya school, it gives me immense satisfaction to inaugrate this new facility for the boys as well. We hope that this will bring about an even further improvement in number of enrollments at the school. We are positive that we will be able to bring about even greater change in the community, empowering the rural population to grow in a better and progressive environment”.

Since the involvement of Schaeffler India, the effect on student enrollment has really inspired the student retention ratio to increase to 90 percent with a male-female ratio of 60:40. They also start National University of Student Skill Development for the students of this school to give them the technical knowledge after tie up with nearby colleges.

Lok Vidyalaya School also recently recieved appreciation in the form of ‘Diamond’ awards – the highest award for “Par Excellence Performance” at the Third HR / CSR Virtual Convention 2020-21 organized by the Vadodara chapter of the Quality Circle Movement in India (QCFI).

The Lok Vidyalaya School is a residential Grant-in-Aid Tribal Secondary School located in the village of Lamdapura in Savli, Gujarat, which was adopted by Schaeffler India back in 2016. Under their HOPE CSR program, it provides complete infrastructure and educational support to the school to encourage differently-abled & lesser-privileged students in the rural villages to pursue education and fulfill their dreams.

More than 93% of the students of Lok Vidyalaya School belong to marginalized communities (SC/ST/OBC) with nearly 40% of the students being girls. Schaeffler India has been investing in improving the school facilities, including the construction of a state-of-the-art girl’s hostel at the school premises.