Three banks, three companies and five individuals were crowned with the inaugural "A Better Tomorrow CSR Awards" by The Daily Star and the CSR Window Bangladesh in recognition of their extraordinary accomplishments and efforts to create better lives.

Prime Bank Eye Hospital, set up by Prime Bank Ltd, won the award in the healthcare category, while DBBL Scholarship Programme, run by Dutch-Bangla Bank Ltd, bagged the top award in the education segment.

The Environment Livelihood Program for Conservation, an initiative of BSRM Group of Companies, took home the accolade as the Best CSR-Environment category.

The Best CSR in Financial Inclusion award went to Banglalink Digital Communications Ltd, while Standard Chartered Bangladesh won the award in the Best CSR in the Covid-19 Response category.

Nestlé Bangladesh Ltd won the Best CSR in Community Engagement category.

Planning Minister MA Mannan handed over the awards to the winners at an event at the Le Méridien Dhaka hotel.

In recent years, Bangladesh has seen a huge growth in CSR (Corporate Social Responsibility) projects, initiated by firms, both national and multinational.

This led The Daily Star, the country's most-read English language newspaper, and the CSR Window Bangladesh, a platform that allows individuals, entrepreneurs, corporates, NGOs or social organisations to bring ideas to life that benefit communities at large, introduced the award to recognise the impactful projects that can serve as benchmarks for the others.

Prime Bank Eye Hospital has been playing a pivotal role in addressing the avoidable blindness since its inception in 2012. It carries out outreach camps and provides free and subsidised treatments to communities in need.

It has served more than 135,744 patients as December 2020, with most of them coming from low-income segment of the population. Over 12,000 patients have successfully underwent eye surgeries.

Through the DBBL Scholarship Programme, Dutch-Bangla Bank's runs one of the country's biggest CSR projects.

So far, Tk 427 crore has been provided to meritorious students in need of financial support, with a total of beneficiaries of 62,752.

BSRM Group of Companies operates the "Livelihood Programme for Conservation" project, in partnership with Young Power in Social Action, to prevent forest devastation.

The project works find and create income-generating opportunities for communities dependent on felling trees and selling wood to brick mills for income.

Presently, 6,940 households are enrolled in income-generating activities. Since these households do not fell trees for income, an estimated 55,520 trees are preserved, adding to local biodiversity. The beneficiary households have seen an average increase of Tk 2,930 in monthly disposable income.

Standard Chartered Bangladesh (SCB) partnered with multiple public and development sector bodies to reach out to farmers, healthcare workers, the education sector and those in need of immediate relief support since the coronavirus pandemic hit the country.

Its initiative provided food supplies and hygiene support in form of relief packages to 120,000 individuals, delivering 3.6 million meals and personal hygiene materials.

Since 2008, the "Sustainable Sourcing for Farmers" programme has enabled Nestlé Bangladesh to build capacity and agricultural knowledge of farmers in rural communities.

The farmers saw an increase of 10 to 25 percent of monthly income.

Banglalink, in partnership with Google Area 120, created a platform, Kormo Jobs, to promote financial inclusion and community engagement. Now, it takes only one click to match and train aspiring job seekers and get their preferred jobs.

DBBL Managing Director Abul Kashem Md Shirin, BSRM Group Chairman Alihussain Akberali, Prime Bank Managing Director Hassan O Rashid, Banglalink Chief Executive Officer Erik Aas, Standard Chartered Bangladesh CEO Naser Ezaz Bijoy, and Nestlé Bangladesh Managing Director Deepal Abeywickrema accepted the awards on behalf of the respective organisations.

IDLC Water Ambulance of IDLC Finance Ltd, the Ucchash School of IPDC Finance Ltd, the Plant For Planet of Epyllion Group, Swapno of Marico Ltd, the Food and Nutrition Support Programme of Confidence Group, and the Child Online Safety of Grameenphone received the honourable mention in the six categories.

Mominul Islam, managing director & CEO of IPDC Finance, Mohammed Showket Iqbal, general manager for human resources and administration of Epyllion Group, Christabel Randolph, director for legal and corporate affairs at Marico Bangladesh, Mohammed Tariqul Islam, chief HR and corporate communication officer of Confidence Group, and Hossain Sadat, acting chief corporate affairs officer of Grameenphone, accepted the crest on behalf of their organisations. 

The award organisers also honoured five young changemakers as the Young Humanitarian of the Year for delivering inspiring and meaningful transformations in improving lives.

They are Amiya Prapan Chakraborty Arka, founder of Dhrubotara Youth Development Foundation, a platform that allows space to youth across Bangladesh to engage in social activities, volunteerism and policy-level dialogue and Ahmed Imtiaz Jami, founder of Obhizatrik Foundation, which works on poverty elimination, education, health and nutrition and human rights in sustainable poverty alleviation projects.

Esrat Karim Eve, founder of Amal Foundation, which operates centres that teach sellable skills to the victims of child marriages and domestic violence as well as divorcees and widows was also named as the Young Humanitarian of the Year.

Other two humanitarians of the year were Tawhida Shiropa, founder and CEO of Moner Bondhu, which provides in-person and online counseling services to millions of people suffering from mental health issues, and Ratul Dev, who founded GenLab to engage youth from all over the world in the development process in their locality.

While presenting his keynote, Rajiv Prasad Shaha, chairman and managing director of Kumudini Welfare Trust of Bengal (BD) Ltd, said profit was needed to sustain businesses and organisations and give. But the objective should be how to benefit the people. 

"And those who work for the people, the society, the nation, and the world live forever," he said, while speaking about the journey of the trust and its legendary founder R P Shaha.

While making a keynote presentation, Shehzad Munim, managing director of BAT Bangladesh, said time had come to gradually move from ESG (environmental, social, and governance) standards from CSR as companies are going to have to address the criteria in the coming days.

"We have to embrace ESG and work on the criteria if we want to become a global sourcing destination and attract foreign direct investment."

Munim also touched upon governance issue, saying companies that were transparent and compliant should have an edge over those that were not maintaining them, and the latter should be pushed to comply.

In his speech, the planning minister described the Awards as the trailblazing event for the country.

He thanked The Daily Star and the CSR Window Bangladesh for introducing the awards and urged them to continue the initiative and congratulated the award winners.

He said the government was working towards building better Bangladesh, better tomorrow for everyone.

He said Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina and her team were trying in every possible way to bring changes in life and living, changes in thought and visions.

He lauded the private sectors effort and its hard work.  "We would like you to grow further and we need your cooperation for our mutual benefit, for the common interest of our motherland. This task requires support from the private sector."

No government can go a long way without private sector, he said.

"We want to build an inclusive society. And we are working for improving living standard of all," he said.

In his reaction, DBBL Managing Director Abul Kashem Md Shirin said: "Although we don't want to expect any return for the CSR activities we have been doing for a long time, we are very delighted to have won the award."  

"This will give us encouragement," he said, adding that CSR activities helped the poor.

Alihussain Akberali said people and the companies that had done so much for the country should be encouraged and supported more, and their voices should be heard.

"Our letters should not be kept in the box of the government offices," he said.

Erik Aas said: "We are delighted and proud of receiving this prestigious award, which is a testimony to the role Banglalink has been playing as a socially responsible corporate organisation."

"There are so many talented people in our country, and our key objective behind the partnership with Kormo Jobs is to facilitate youth employment through utilisation of our service points and multiple digital initiatives."

"The partnership has already resulted in remarkable success, and today's recognition will motivate us for further efforts to support the youth of the country."

Nestlé Bangladesh Managing Director Deepal Abeywickrema said: "We are extremely honoured and humbled of the recognition of the work that we have done."

"We always believe in giving back to society. Its the core essence of Nestlé. Recognition of that is significant for all of us."

Naser Ezaz Bijoy said: "We are very extremely humbled by this recognition. This will definitely encourage us to do more. We always try to focus more on the impacts than the monetary value. This is something we have been doing for a long time."

Corporates were the direct beneficiary of the country's prosperous journey, he said.

"So, it is incumbent on us to give it back to the community and the country."

When the pandemic struck, the bank realised that this was the time to devote, he said.

Naser said the world was gradually moving to socially responsible corporates from CSR. ESG was no longer an option; it was a must, he said.

Prime Bank Managing Director Hassan O Rashid said: "Prime Bank is really honoured to receive this award. It will encourage the Prime Bank family to continue with the good work to have a positive impact in the society and people we serve."

Mahfuz Anam, editor and publisher of The Daily Star, said CSR had become more relevant than in the past because of the coronavirus pandemic.

He said it was the moment of great opportunity to reinvent and rejuvenate. The corporates in Bangladesh is rising to the occasion, he said.

"Ultimately, it is the human value that actually transform the society," he said.

As a newspaper, Anam said, "The Daily Star is always with issues that are good for the society."

Ahsan Rony, co-founder of the CSR Window Bangladesh, said if corporates amplified their CSR activities, they would be able to bring significant collective change in the country. 

Khayam Sanu Sandhi and his team performed at the event. The Le Méridien Dhaka hotel is the hospitality partner for the event.