Taj Palace Hotel offers Livelihood Support to Two Women

TAJ Group of Hotels had announced that they would support donations of material for livelihood projects and called it building livelihood. The recommended candidates and applications from CIOSA members were forwarded to Taj Palace Hotel HR, who in turn short listed 5 candidates.  They selected Rajeshwari and  Durga and supported them with livelihood materials on Aug 4th, 2011.

Rajeshwari with her Power Sewing machine and Inter Locking machine

  

Ms. Rajeshwari hails from R.K.Nagar Sangam, North Chennai District; Rajeswari is member of differently abled welfare association R.K.Nagar branch. She was a candidate referred Tamil Nadu Handicapped Federation CharitableTrust -TNHFCT . 

As for her social and economical background, Rajeswari is the wife of a rickshaw puller and parent of 3 children of who Sankar, the first child is mentally ill and the next 2 young daughters are at school. She has not been able to develop a livelihood on her own due to very poor social reserve and was not able avail bank loans as she was unable to produce support documents required by banks. Mrs.Rajeswari has been having tailoring shop and selling ready made cloths on a very small scale.

At this juncture, it was a very heartening gesture from Taj group of Hotels to take the initiative to help such under privileged people like Rajeswari to develop a sustainable livelihood and offered to help in kind, the high power sewing machine and interlocking machine worth about Rs.25,000/- to her. Rajeswari was overwhelmed by your gesture and had tears of joy and said she would set up a tailoring shop and climb the ladder of success soon and has invited all our orders! 

Durga with her Idli Kitchen Set

Durga is another beneficiary of Taj Palace Hotel’s Livelihood project. She hails from Kanaginagar, Kancheepuram District. She is a person with disability resulting from post polio paralysis. Durga is member of differently abled welfare association Chemmancherry branch. Durga has not been able to develop a livelihood on her own due to very poor social reserve and her disability. She was Not able avail bank loans as she was unable to produce support documents required by banks. 

She lost her husband who was a severe alcoholic, thus pushing her down the ladder of social positions. She has been running a roadside petty idli shop (on the platform) selling food and snacks at night. She wanted to expand her business as there was a demand for her food items, but she lacked finance, materials and infrastructure to expand. 

At this juncture, Taj Palace Hotel stepped in to help her with a livelihood project and procured her required material for setting up the shop. They procured the materials needed for setting up an idli shop - like gas stove, 10 plastic stools, 2 plastic dining tables, grinder and a mixiee and some vessels worth Rs.20,000/- and offered to support of training her at Taj Palace hotel.

Rajeswari & Durga were very happy and full of gratitude and said these will help them earn their livelihood with great dignity and live with confidence. The involvement & Joy of giving by the Taj Palace Hotel staff was very much visible as each of them contributed their time in screening process like visiting the candidates, correspondence with CIOSA, short listing application., personal interview of candidates, visits to candidates house (surprise check), selection and procuring the material and ultimately arranging a distribution event . The time each individuals staff had volunteered and contributed to this support was commendable, we hold gratitude in our hearts for ever. 

We were informed that the funds for this support came from amounts charged to the guest on any breakage (after deducting the actual cost) that was interesting, hope to have many more guest breaking plates!! This generosity and involvement will make a difference in the lives of Rajeswari & Durga and many more to come. Hope for many more offers of such help for our members. Request all our members to make use of our call of applications for any support as this and respond to circulated emails as it would make great difference in lives of people of your NGO and leave you with fulfillment. We are trying more ways to be connected with all of you, please do keep in touch and keep calling. Thanking all the CIOSA members for their cooperation.