Recently, Indian tyre major Apollo Tyres won the Asia Responsible Entrepreneurship Award (AREA) 2012 South Asia in the Health Promotion category for its HIV-AIDS initiative. The company runs more than 21 health care centres across the country, for spreading awareness about HIV-AIDS among the trucking community, one of the most susceptible groups, and it also has an HIV-AIDS policy at the workplace. Apart from this, sensitisation sessions have also been conducted by In-house Master trainers for Apollo's Business Partners.
Apollo has been involved in spreading awareness about the deadly disease since 2001, through its network of employees, communities and business partners. Onkar S. Anwar, Chairman at Apollo Tyres Ltd., while commenting on the effectiveness of the initiative, said, “Caring for society has always been a core value at Apollo Tyres. And, an award of such merit and standing only strengthens our resolve to ensure that our social responsibility initiatives continue to be treated as key business goals, backed by a long-term strategic business thought and sound business processes.” The AREA was received by Chief Financial Officer, Sunam Sarkar.
During the previous fiscal year, more than 4,500 patients have been treated for sexually transmitted diseases and 38,500 patients for general health problems, at the 21 health care centres. 29,500 persons have received counselling on AIDS, whereas 13,000 have participated in voluntary testing for AIDS at these centres.
An initiative by the Enterprise Asia group, the Asia Responsible Entrepreneurship Awards (AREA) program recognizes Asian companies for path breaking work towards health promotion, social empowerment, responsible business leadership and SME CSR. Such initiatives would always help the Corporate group show its commitment towards improving the lives of ordinary persons.
