ICICI Bank 2008 Annual Report Download - page 49

Towards a better life
under the National Rural Health Mission (NRHM), as well as a city-wide effort in Mumbai. ICCHN’s support has
enabled five of its partners to grow into important resource institutions for the health sector.
In the field of education the ICICI Foundation supports the ICICI Centre for Elementary Education (ICEE) (www.icee.
org.in), which strives to play a catalytic role in improving the provision and quality of elementary education. It enters
into partnerships with voluntary organisations working in education that have experience in teachers education,
curriculum development, material development, educational research and running schools for marginalised
communities and implementing large programmes. Working with these CSOs/NGOs, ICEE seeks to energise the
existing government network of educational institutions at the district, state and national levels. Bodies like the
State Councils of Educational Research and Training (SCERTs) and the District Institutes of Education and Training
(DIETs) in several parts of the country form a part of this engagement. In its endeavour to improve the quality of
elementary education, ICEE has reached out to nearly 6 million children through curricular reform. About 45,000
teachers have been trained. It has partnerships with state governments of Bihar, Rajasthan, Chhattisgarh, Madhya
Pradesh and Gujarat.
Sustainability: Promoting environmental sustainability and the growth of a strong civil society are crucial requisites
for inclusive growth.
Towards this end, the Foundation has partnered with the Environmentally Sustainable Project Finance (ESPF)
(http://ifmr.ac.in/cdf/project_finance.htm) research team at the Centre for Development Finance at IFMR, in order to
foster markets for delivering high quality, environmentally sustainable infrastructure, goods and services. Its work is
focussed on the areas of sustainable development, climate change, responsible investment and accountability.
Towards building an effective civil society, the Foundation is actively mentoring CSO Partners (www.
csopartners.org.in), a resource centre to strengthen CSOs which includes NGOs engaged in the task of social
change and economic development and local self government organisations such as Gram Panchayats. CSO
Partners seeks to facilitate strategic partnerships between CSOs and experienced service providers with whom
it is in the process of building partnerships, in various areas, including fund-raising, financial management,
volunteering, organisational governance, communications, accounting, human resources, legal aid and
accounting. Its current partners include: GiveIndia (www.giveindia.org), Mitra (www.mitra.org.in), Infochange
(www.infochangeindia.org), Governance Matters (www.governancematters.in) and MAM movies
(www.mammovies.com).
The ICICI Group believes that inclusive growth is essential to the sustainable and healthy growth of the economy.
The ICICI Group is committed to create conditions for the empowerment of low-income Indians and to facilitate
inclusive growth.
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