‘Health’ is one of the most important pillars of Corporate Social Responsibility activities here at Volkswagen India. While the company is already providing medical services to the nearby villages, recently, it also donated an ambulance to “Sangati Trust”. About Sangati Trust: “Sangati” means Companion. This trust was formed with the main objective of ‘facilitating patients and supporting them on various difficulties faced during treatment processes. This trust is committed to help patients from poor socio-economic background to avail various government facilities, apply for grants, and seek financial help for arranging accommodation in the city. The Sangati Trust was founded by Dr. Sujit Nilegaonkar who is the Consultant and Head of Department, Nuclear Medicine at Deenanath Mangeshkar Hospital has been actively contributing in social work for past 12 years. Why Ambulance: Sangati Trust is committed towards tribal and rural development and has identified a lack of medical services and infrastructure in these areas. The villagers indulge in a lot of home remedies which aren’t safe and hygienic for the patients most of the times. The trust has been organizing a lot of medical camps across villages and tribal areas like Mokhada near Nashik and they have seen that in case of emergency, the available Ambulance service failed to reach the village and the patients lost their lives due to it. There have been several instances when the medical aid could not reach the patient in time and it costed them their lives. To eliminate this issue and to provide at least first level of attention they felt the need of having an Ambulance in the nearby region of these villages. Sangati team got in touch with the CSR department of Volkswagen India and the proposal of donating an ambulance to this trust was evaluated. Keeping in mind the noble cause of this trust, Volkswagen India decided to donate the Ambulance. Reactions from the Founder Trustee of Sangati Trust and Mr. Masson – Dr. Nilegaonkar on behalf of Sangati Trust expressed the gratitude towards Volkswagen India for donating the Ambulance and shared their plan of stationing the Ambulance at the Mokhada village so that it can instantly help the villagers in case of emergencies. On this occasion, Mr. Masson, Executive Director, HR and Admin handed over the Ambulance keys to the Sangati Trust and congratulated Dr. Sujit on the activities that this Trust is carrying out over the last few years. The trust has planned a tribal medical camp in the month of May 2019 and has extended an invitation to the Volkswagen team to join for the medical camp.

Contact Person: Jayesh Sule (mailto:jayesh.sule@volkswagen.co.in)

Last night I got back from a two day paediatric medical camp in the Adivasi villages of Mokhada taluka in Palghar district. This is the first time I volunteered to work with an NGO. This taluka is about a 7 hours drive away from Pune. The camp, “Anubhooti” was organised by two NGOs called “Sangati” and “Parivartan”. Our group of 28, consisted of BAMS and MBBS students and together, all of us screened around 1000 kids and also provided treatment. I admit that I hadn’t even heard of these places before. We watch the news and we hear stories about how hard life is, in rural areas, but actually visiting them and seeing the reality is another story altogether. Education, Child Marriage and availability of basic food and water are huge crises in these tribal villages. The magnitude of poor health and disease in this belt is huge. All of us living in cities are so incredibly privileged that we tend to lose sight of how our fellow Indians are still struggling for basic necessities and human rights. The entire experience was extremely overwhelming. A big thank you to Dr. Sujit Nilegaonkar Sir for organising this camp and also for these wonderful photographs that he captured.