CAUSE MARKETING

Synergie works with brands to help them drive profit with purpose, designing and implementing marketing campaigns (urban and rural) which strengthen brand positioning to a related cause. The campaigns include the following:

• Designing messaging and amplification strategy (including content creation and social media strategy) to align brands with the identified cause
• Designing and Implementing Below The Line (BTL) activities for the target segment
• Creating multi-stakeholder partnerships
• Mobilizing the target segment
• Measuring Key Performance Indicators

CASE STUDIES: “KILL MOSQUITOES, KILL MALARIA” CAMPAIGN

Godrej Consumer Products launched “HIT”, a mosquito repellent with the positioning of “Kill Mosquitoes. Kill malaria”. Synergie worked with the brand team to design an “anti-malaria” campaign implemented across 30 cities in India based on HIT’s positioning of Kill Mosquitoes. Kill Malaria.

The campaign covered more than 850 schools, 330 Housing Societies and Markets and more than 300 slums. It was supported by the municipal corporation of all the 30 cities. The campaign consisted of various activities such as public addresses by doctors, roadshows on canter, quiz competitions, puppet shows, rallies, awareness sessions, clean up drives etc.

The campaign generated more than 3 lakh likes on its Facebook page “Malaria Kills Opportunities”.

PROJECT ‘WITH YOU CHENNAI

A PROJECT FOR CONTROL OF DENGUE/MALARIA IN CHENNAI SLUMS IN THE AFTERMATH OF DEVASTATING FLOODS IN DEC 2015 IN PARTNERSHIP WITH GOODKNIGHT & CHENNAI MUNICIPAL CORPORATION

In December 2015, severe spells of rain flooded Chennai and its neighboring areas. More than 400 lives were lost, and immense damage caused to property and livestock. While the government, NGOs and the Samaritans, organized relief and rescue, many companies also contributed to the efforts.

As flood waters recede, mosquito-borne diseases such as Dengue & Malaria pose an imminent threat. Synergie, in partnership with GoodKnight, and supported by the Chennai Municipal Corporation, concentrated its efforts on prevention of Vector-Borne Diseases by organizing large scale distribution of mosquito repellents and organizing cleanup drives.

The campaign was run in December 2015, with multiple centers running simultaneously. The outreach extended to thousands of families in slums across Chennai. FM radio and social media was used to spread the word about the location of the distribution centers.

Local NGOs, Churches, Youth Clubs, all came forward to support this initiative.

RESPECT THE ROAD: A ROAD SAFETY & RESPONSIBLE DRINKING INITIATIVE

Synergie works as CSR Partner with SAB Miller for ‘Respect the Road’ – Don’t Drink & Drive. The initiative was launched in India in 2011, with support from Gurgaon Traffic Police. The program, besides promoting the message of responsible drinking and overall road safety, also encourages people to use alternatives to drinking and driving such as calling a cab, hiring a chauffeur or designating a buddy to drive.

The program is being implemented in Gurgaon, Bangalore & Bhubaneshwar, in association with the Traffic Police of the respective cities and other partners such as Ola, Uber & Mega Cabs.

Interventions include working with pubs and bars, awareness programs such as street plays in public places such as malls, toll plazas, office complexes, petrol pumps etc. The impact has been assessed through data collected from the traffic Police, a sample of pubs & bars and from partners, and there has been a decline in the number of drunk driving challans, and an increase in the number of people opting for chauffeurs & cabs from pubs/bars.

PROJECT ON MALARIA AWARENESS & PREVENTIVE ACTION, IN SLUMS AND SCHOOLS

In 2014-15 also, Synergie continued its program for Malaria awareness and preventive action. The program, started in 2011, aims to create awareness and catalyze preventive action to curb malaria in the country.

This is an awareness program against malaria and other mosquito-borne diseases and aims to reach out to slum communities, school children and the public at large. During 2014-15, we reached out to more than 180 schools and more than 230 slums in 18 cities.

Slum communities and school students were sensitized to the need for maintaining hygiene and cleanliness in their homes and surroundings. Health Camps were organized in slums. Large scale clean-up drives were organized with support from the Municipal Corporations of various cities, youth groups, communities etc. Sessions with doctors were organized and several awareness programs such as street plays, puppet shows, etc were organized to spread awareness on preventing vector-borne diseases.

The municipal corporations in each city supported the program by providing additional support like workers for cleanliness, collection of garbage and disposal, fumigation and a sprinkling of insecticide powder in larvae breeding places. In several cities, the Mayors or other senior officials flagged off the Awareness Rallies of students.

LEARNING CENTER FOR SKILL DEVELOPMENT OF TRIBAL WOMEN

Synergie has successfully set up a Learning Center for tribal women in Sanjay Gandhi National Park (SGNP), Mumbai, which falls under the Ministry of Environment and Forest. This is a multi stakeholder joint initiative by SGNP, Oil and Natural Gas Commission (ONGC), Synergie and a local Tribal Trust. Under this project, tribal women of the Warli Tribe residing within the SGNP premises are being trained to make cotton bags. These bags will be purchased by SGNP and provided to visitors to the SGNP park, in an effort to make the SGNP park premises plastic free. The initiative will thus serve a dual purpose - an environment friendly initiative towards making the Sanjay Gandhi National Park plastic free, and an income generation initiative for tribal women.

Sewing machines and other necessary equipment (scissors, raw material etc) have been placed in the Learning Center, and a trainer has started training the tribal women in making cotton bags. The tribal women trainees will also be taken on exposure visits to markets so as to help them identify raw material and other equipment, so that they are self sufficient in making the bags on their own, after the end of the project period. All the machines, furniture etc will be handed over to SGNP at the end of the project period, and the women will take forward the project on their own.

CLEAN DRINKING WATER PROJECT WITH WOCKHARDT

Synergie is working on a clean drinking water project in slums in Moradabad that are facing an issue of contaminated drinking water and as a result, the community reports several cases of diarrhea, dysentery, typhoid, jaundice, gastroenteritis and other water borne diseases. Under this project, community awareness programs, training of peer educators etc are being organized. The project aims to generate awareness about the benefits of clean drinking water in slums of Delhi, and ensure community access to clean drinking water through use of water purification tablets.

Peer educators have been trained in the slum communities to spread awareness about clean drinking water. The project is being supported by Wockhardt Foundation, a not for profit social arm of Wockhardt Ltd. that undertakes and supports social development programs.

COLLABORATIVE CSR TO MAKE ROADS SAFER FOR CHILDREN

Synergie worked with international federation “Global Road Safety Partnership” (GRSP) to design and implement a project for making roads safer for children in India. 46 kids die in India every day due to road accidents. While multiple factors are responsible for this alarming trend in India, one of the major factors is children not wearing a helmet when riding pillion. A conducive ecosystem needs to be in place to encourage children to wear helmets. Synergie designed and implemented the project around the following pillars:

• Creating collaborative partnerships with Government, media, traffic police, Industry Bodies, Helmet Manufacturers, Paediatrics Associations etc to work on ways to keep children safe on roads.
• Organising stakeholder consultations and workshops to drive thought leadership in the area of keeping children safe on the road
• Implementing evidence-based Behaviour Change Techniques amongst students to encourage them to wear helmets.
• Designing Social media strategy to amplify the messaging
• Designing KPI based Monitoring and Evaluation of the project

COLLABORATIVE CSR FOR TO ADDRESS COMMUNICABLE AND NON-COMMUNICABLE DISEASES

Synergie has conceptualized and implemented various programmes to address Communicable and Non-Communicable Diseases. The programme design includes the following:

• Alignment with Sustainable Development Goals
• Identification and measurement of Key Performance Indicators as an integral part of the project
• Stakeholder involvement, with strong focus on Public-Private Participation
• Community Mobilization, Awareness, Behavior Change and Interventions
• Follow up and Feedback

As a case study, Synergie in partnership with Ministry of Health and Family Welfare, Government of India, formed a task force chaired by National Vector Borne Disease Control Programme (NVBDCP) and comprising of corporates, industry organisations, bi-lateral agencies and subject matter experts.

Government of India called it as one of the most innovative Public-Private Partnerships during the World Malaria Day 2018, as it led to corporates focusing on vector-borne diseases (specifically malaria and dengue) in their premises as well as in the communities near their area of operations. The national-level task force led to corporates forming their own focused groups like “Gurgaon Task Force” to maximize their impact.

Synergie provided thought leadership to the task force in the areas of amplification of message leveraging social media, using IT tools to fight VBD, pooling resources from industry to meet the identified goals and sharing learnings and best practices during the duration of the project.

Synergie also implemented the best practices identified by the task force in the tribal villages of Jajpur, Odisha in collaboration with Jindal Stainless Steel and NVBDCP, Jajpur. The Program was implemented by Synergie with the objective of malaria elimination in 6 villages of Jajpur impacting 4500 people. The forest-based economy in tribal villages meant many people worked in areas thick with the mosquitoes that carry the malaria parasite. Malaria incidence was high depriving the local people of their potential.

Synergie launched a comprehensive 4-pronged strategy comprising of launching awareness campaign with an intent to behavior change, investing in capacity building of local people with focus on diagnosis, treatment and prevention, fostering multi-stakeholder partnership for sustainability and strengthening data collection and monitoring mechanism to eliminate malaria.

Within one year of the project the incidences were brought down to zero in two villages and 90% reduction in remaining villages winning accolades from the government.

INFORMATION, EDUCATION AND CONTENT (IEC) DESIGN AND DEVELOPMENT

Synergie believes that a behaviour change campaign starts with creating awareness, with the intent of mobilizing communities into taking action. Hence, to effect behaviour change, the campaign should pivot its IEC strategy on evidence based behaviour change techniques. The IEC material should not only be available in various mediums such as print, media and customized to local norms/culture, but also have cutting edge content design and development including animations, videos and infographics.

Synergie’s IEC team understands the importance of effective communication for the success of any program and combines technological and domain experience to create highly impactful content for its customers.

CASE STUDY: ROAD SAFETY COURSE CONTENT CREATION WITH BRITISH PETROLEUM

As per WHO, India accounts for 20% of global road fatalities. Further, the accident severity, which is measured as the number of persons killed per 100 accidents has increased from 29.1 in 2015 to 31.4 in 2016.

413 people die every day and almost 10% of the victims are children; 43 children below the age of 18 years die on Indian roads every day. Children are victims of accidents; either as passengers or when they are walking/ cycling on the roads. Today’s children are also tomorrow’s drivers and influencing them early ensures better road users in the future. Multiple areas of behavioural change interventions have shown that women and children are great influencers of families, making them prime targets for educational interventions.

Responding to the crisis of deaths and injuries caused by road accidents, the Supreme Court has set up the Supreme Court Committee on Road Safety (SCCRS) with the key objective to promote safety on roads and reduce accidents in India. One of the key pillars identified by SCCRS is “education” with special focus on including road safety as part of school curriculum and building capacity of teachers to teach road safety.

Synergie, as part of the CSR initiative of BP India (erstwhile British Petroleum) created a comprehensive road safety curriculum for K-12 students. The content had inputs from a task force comprising of IIT Delhi, SIAM, UNGCNI, Government organisations, principals of private and government schools, subject matter experts and traffic police.

The content was based on ABC framework (Awareness, Behaviour and Choice), to help students improve their functional skills while interacting with traffic. The content combines domain and technology expertise to provide a very practical approach to making children safe on roads. The course content is modular, activity oriented, interspersed with animation videos and has content for both teachers and students.

FEED A TRUCKER

In the wake of Covid 19 many vulnerable communities in India are struggling to find essentials such as food and hygiene items. One of the worst hit are truck drivers who are stranded on the road or in transport hubs – 3.5 lac, as per a report by Times of India.

Synergie and Society of Indian Automobile Manufacturers (SIAM) have launched FEED A TRUCKER, a collaborative platform bringing together Corporates, Leading National Transport Associations, Civil Society and city Police, for regular supply of essentials to stranded drivers and impacted communities across the country.

The key highlights of the project are as follows:

• All contributions to this project are eligible CSR spend and donors will be provided 80G certificate
• Real time monitoring using digital dashboards for donors
• Food & other items are being sourced from credible NGOs with requisite licenses and following Covid-19 related safety & hygiene practices.
• Community Mobilization, Awareness, Behavior Change and Interventions
• Follow up and Feedback

We aim to reach out to as many impacted communities as possible and solicit your support.

Community Need Assessment

As part of their CSR initiative, organizations seek to engage strategically with the local communities to have a net positive impact on their lives.

In order to effect an engagement that is strategic, and not sporadic, it is imperative to first assess the issues that the community perceives as important. This is done through a Community Need Assessment (CNA), which aims to identify such community issues. In addition, Stakeholder Mapping is also carried out with key internal and external stakeholders to identify the interests they represent, the amount of power they possess, whether they represent inhibiting or supporting factors for the organization to realize its objective/s and so on.

The insights from the CNA and the Stakeholder Mapping form the basis for a long-term engagement program by the corporates for the communities.

Synergie with its team of experienced social practitioners undertakes need assessment study for the corporates.

The key objectives of these studies are:

1. To map the profile of the community, vis-à-vis various social, economic and demographic indicators, and identify key felt needs of the communities.
2. To meet with other key respondents to seek their viewpoint vis-à-vis issues of concern to the community. These key respondents could include:
   • NGOs working in the area (if any);
   • Local bodies / Government agencies;
   • Members of existing groups/associations within the community; etc.
3. To understand the community perspective on various institutions that are impacting their lives, and their opinion on what would constitute a useful and effective engagement for them
4. To carry out a Stakeholder Mapping by identifying internal and external stakeholders and categorizing them based on various indicators so as to depict the interests they represent, the amount of power they possess, whether they represent inhibiting or supporting factors for the organization to realize its objective/s and so on.

Synergie follows Participatory Aspiration Study (PAS) which is based on the premise that people can articulate their problems themselves and participate directly in the process of defining, analyzing, suggesting solutions and acting upon them. The process provides for encouraging the voices of the people towards articulating, in their own terms, the dimensions of the problems they experience. A systematic interaction with the community is the most fundamental principle of this approach. Recognizing the role of other factors and forces influencing the situation of the people through interaction with multiple stakeholders is also central to participatory process.

Profiling the heterogeneity of the community, in terms of different social status, age, gender and different degrees of access and control vis-à-vis productive resources and equally diverse coping strategies requires the PAS methodology that effectively brings to the fore their aspirations, problems and issues from their own perspective.

“FUTURE IS NOW”- A PUBLIC PRIVATE PARTNERSHIP

The United Nations has defined 17 Sustainable Development Goals (Global Goals) to empower people, drive prosperity, protect the planet, foster peace and nurture global partnerships to tackle the world’s biggest problems by 2030. Children play a pivotal role in realising these goals as they are the changers of tomorrow.

In India, more than 40% of the population is less than 18 years of age. To solve the nation's problems, this generation needs to know what those problems are. A good way to ensure this is to teach them about the Global Goals and enable them to take action.

Synergie, in partnership with Yes Bank and United Nations Global Compact Network India (UN-GCNI), has launched “Future is now”, a nation-wide initiative aimed at educating school students about the Sustainable Development Goals (#TellEveryone), enable them to take- action (#TakeAction) and support on-going initiatives (#GreenGoodDeeds).

The project was implemented in 30 Government Schools under the Department of Education, North Delhi Municipal Corporation. The project impacted 6257 school children.

As a part of this initiative, one-hour experiential training sessions were conducted leveraging the best practices and learning material propagated by the UN. The training were interspersed with theory and interactive sessions and engaging games to help the students imbibe the importance of the Global Goals, with special emphasis on the environment and climate change

The following training process was followed:

• With the help of an introductory video, we inspired children to believe that they are the superheroes who can make a difference in solving global problems.
• Conducted activities amongst them to communicate the message that it will take a collaborative effort to address global goals
• Shared international and national case studies on how children are contributing towards the cause
• Conducted in-depth training about the Environment with emphasis on sanitation, saying no to plastic use, pollution control, open defecation and urination and promotion of afforestation.
• Children were told that through the “4 powers” of “Time, Teach, Talent and Treasure” they can contribute towards global goals.

CASTROL SARATHI MITRA ROAD SAFETY PROGRAMME FOR TRUCK DRIVERS

In India, truckers spend long hours on the road, driving under testing conditions. Lack of sleep, fatigue & stress increase vulnerability to lifestyle diseases and even risk to life. In addition, lack of knowledge of road safety, defensive driving techniques etc. also makes them vulnerable to accidents. As per National Crime Records Bureau’s data, 20% of all fatalities on the road in India in 2014 involved truck drivers. Hence there is a clear need for a programmatic intervention amongst the trucker community to enable them to stay safe on the road.

Synergie in collaboration with Castrol India designed and implemented a program for the well-being of truck drivers as part of Castrol’s CSR initiative of Sarathi Mitra. The initiative was rolled out from training centres in transport hubs of Delhi, Mumbai and Jaipur in collaboration with the government, traffic police, transporters, associations of transporters, and other local stakeholders.

The 3 key pillars to make the initiative impactful and sustainable were:

• Sustained communication with truck drivers on Road Safety & Healthy Lifestyles, to effect behaviour change via outreach activities, IEC tools, in-house training and capacity building. Appropriate Behaviour Changing Techniques (BCT) were applied and digital platforms were used to gauge impact and progress.
• Institutionalization of safety processes & systems amongst transporters, so as to ensure sustainability. In addition to the drivers, transporters too can be trained on the institutionalization of Standard Operating Procedures (SOP) that would safeguard the safety & health of truckers.
• Multi-stakeholder Approach – a collaboration with Traffic Police, MoRTH, Banks, Insurance Companies, other companies, NGOs etc. towards creating a safe ecosystem for truck drivers.

So far, Synergie has trained more than 30,000 truck drivers on defensive driving techniques, digital banking, financial prudence and healthy lifestyle.

SUSTAINABLE AGRICULTURE - ORGANIC FARMING

Organic Farming provides the choice of a ‘healthy life’ to consumers by providing food grown without the use of pesticides, synthetic fertilizers, antibiotics or growth hormones. Organic Farming also leaves a reduced impact on the environment. The Government of India and several state governments have taken steps to improve the regulatory framework of organic products along with rolling out several schemes to incentivize organic farming through regulation and production support. In the context of the Sustainable Development Goals, organic agriculture, being regenerative and climate-friendly, contributes directly and indirectly to the attainment of several of the SDGs. For instance, non-exposure to chemicals in food improves health and contributes to a healthy lifestyle (SDG 3), non-exposure to chemical inputs promotes a safer and healthier work environment (SDG 8), and so on, as against conventional agriculture which is associated with high levels of negative externalities.

Synergie in partnership with Indo-Global Social Service Society (IGSSS) has designed a programme to inculcate habit of consuming organic foods amongst children and parents. The school children and their parents are sensitised on sustainable organic foods in contrast to energy dense, processed fast foods. The aim was to reach out to 50,000 school students and their families, in 50 schools in Delhi-NCR.

Synergie designed the programme around the following key pillars:

• Conduct KAP (Knowledge, Attitude and Practice) survey of the target segment
• Create activity-oriented content to drive awareness and action, including exposure visits for children
• Design and implement framework for stakeholder collaboration
• Conduct sensitization workshops amongst schools, parents and children
• Amplify messaging through social media
• Monitor and Evaluate the project