PwC India Foundation & Gram Vikas support Cyclone Fani survivors

• Water storage and sanitation facilities restored in 3 villages in Odisha

Bhubaneshwar, 7 January: PwC India Foundation, in association with Gram Vikas today handed over water storage systems and refurbished sanitation facilities to close to 300 families of the Daruthenga Gram Panchayat in Odisha, which was severely impacted by Cyclone Fani. These facilities were reconstructed by the community members themselves under the guidance of Gram Vikas and were inaugurated by Chief Guest Suresh Kumar Routray, MLA, Jatni Constituency in the presence of Shyamal Mukherjee, Chairman, PwC India. This project is part of the PwC India Foundation’s efforts to provide support to disadvantaged communities in times of natural disasters.

As a part of the intervention, apart from providing safe drinking water, masonry training camps were also organised to help participants, 60% of whom were women, find sustainable livelihood opportunities.

While speaking to the families during the handover ceremony, Shyamal Mukherjee, Chairman, PwC India said, “As part of our Corporate Responsibility initiatives, our aim is to identify the communities that are most in need, provide timely relief and make a difference to them in a meaningful way, providing what they need the most. Through this project, our two-fold objectives are to provide safe drinking water, which is one of the most basic human needs - and to help create secure, sustainable livelihoods for the people of the three villages. It is not about big or small steps, every step counts.  We believe these steps will help the men, women and children of these villages in the most direct manner."

Ever since its inception, PwC India Foundation has been committed to provide relief and rehabilitation support in times of natural calamities, looking at innovative ways to address them, providing immediate relief and restoration to those affected and supporting the local authorities, undertaking pro bono advisory projects to understand the on ground challenges and devising disaster mitigation strategies . So far, PwC has reached out to 13 regions in the sub-continent.

Liby Johnson, Executive Director, Gram Vikas said, “Our aim was to reach out to the rural  communities in the periphery of Bhubaneswar City affected by Cyclone Fani, who have been neglected so far. The support from PwC India Foundation was timely and enabled us to rebuild the best possible infrastructure and rehabilitate communities, schools and anganwadis.”

About PwC

At PwC, our purpose is to build trust in society and solve important problems. We’re a network of firms in 157 countries with over 276,000 people who are committed to delivering quality in assurance, advisory and tax services. Find out more and tell us what matters to you by visiting us at www.pwc.com.

In India, PwC has offices in these cities: Ahmedabad, Bengaluru, Bhopal, Chennai, Delhi NCR, Hyderabad, Kolkata, Mumbai, Pune and Raipur. For more information about PwC India’s service offerings, visit www.pwc.in

PwC refers to the PwC network and/or one or more of its member firms, each of which is a separate legal entity. Please see www.pwc.com/structure for further details.

 About PwC India Foundation (PwCIF)

The PwC India Foundation was established in 2008 with the objective of making an impact in the areas of education and environment sustainability.

We have now expanded our areas of intervention to sanitation, social entrepreneurship and humanitarian response to natural disasters. The Foundation’s initiatives revolve around the following:

• Empowering communities: Supporting programmes run by NGOs
• Enabling participation: Involving our employees by using their expertise
• Special initiatives: Addressing some of the fundamental challenges in our country

About Gram Vikas

Founded in 1979, Gram Vikas works with the mission to promote a sustainable, socially inclusive, and gender equitable society to enable critical masses of poor and marginalised rural people or communities to achieve a dignified quality of life.  Gram Vikas works with more than 110,000 families in about 1400 villages in Odisha and Jharkhand.