Vedanta Jharsuguda conducts week long AIDS awareness program

Vedanta Limited, Jharsuguda, India’s largest producer of aluminium and value-added products,is observing World AIDS Day with a weeklong awareness program. The program aims to sensitize its employees and business partners and the local community on HIV/AIDS prevention, in line with the theme‘End inequalities, End AIDS, End the Pandemic’.

As part of this campaign, Vedanta’s Mobile Health Unit along withWockhardt Foundation, Odisha State AIDS Control Society (OSACS) and employee volunteers reached out to more than 6,000 employees and business partners.Through the campaign, the company intends to covernearly 2000 community members in the coming week, including migrant workers, college students and police personnel in Jharsuguda.

Speaking on the occasion, Mr. Deepak Prasad, Dy. CEO – Vedanta Ltd., Jharsuguda, said, “Ensuring collective health and wellbeing of our communities is a key focus area of our social development initiatives. We have undertaken several health interventions in this region, including providing quality doorstep healthcare services to people in over 72 remote villages through Mobile Health Units. With such projects, we are committed in our efforts to improve the quality of life of our local communities.”

Appreciating the initiative, Mr Shivprasad Ojha, Program Manager, Technical Support Unit (Hindustan Latex Family Planning Promotion Trust)of OSACS, said, “I appreciate Vedanta’s efforts to sensitize the community towards the prevention of HIV/AIDS. This will go a long way in supporting our fight against this life-threatening disease. I thank the organisation for reaching out to the community at large and working towards an AIDS-free society.”

In line with the company’s objective of improving the health conditions of local communities, Vedanta provides a wide spectrum of basic and specialized health services in Jharsuguda, which include Mobile Health Units (MHU), supporting the regional COVID hospital, basic health services with childcare facilities, multi-specialty health camps, and many more.

Vedanta’s social interventions in the domains of sustainable livelihood, quality education, women empowerment, health, water and sanitation, bio-investment and community infrastructure reach out to over 70 villages in Jharsuguda and nearby areas, benefiting nearly 80,000 people in a year. It empowers more than 4000 women from over 339 SHGs, provides doorstep healthcare services to about 32,000 people annually, gives educational support to more than 6400 students, has planted more than 1.48 lakh trees in partnership with locals at the community level.