Tata Steel Inaugurates First CERC At Joda

Joda: Under the flagship “1000 Schools Project”, Tata Steel inaugurated the first Community Education Resource Center (CERC) at Kundrunala Community Centre in Ward No-4 of Joda Municipality in Odisha’s Keonjhar district on March 30.

The centre was inaugurated by Prof R Govinda, Ex-Vice Chancellor, National University for Education Planning and Administration (NUEPA), New Delhi, a premier government institution and Amita Govinda, an expert in pre-primary education.

The centre has been set-up with an objective to strengthen the education and provide a learning platform for all the children and aspiring youth of the community. ASPIRE, a Delhi-based NGO has been engaged by Tata Steel to monitor the centre, till it is fully owned by the community.

Tata Steel has provided 12 computers (7 desktops and 5 laptops), a printer cum scanner, a projector, a projector screen, some educational books and internet access. A village committee has been formed which will take care of all day-to-day functioning of the centre, thus making it purely community-owned resource centre. The centre will play a vital role in catering the educational needs of children from age group of 6-18 years and aspiring youth of the area.

Other dignitaries present on the occasion were Smita Agarwal, Head Education, CSR, Tata Steel, Tanmay Kar, Unit Head, TSRDS, Joda, Satyanarayan Nanda, Head CSR, Tata Sponge and Dayaram, Secretary, ASPIRE including councilors of Joda Municipality, Jitendra Jaiswal, Shrikant Samant and Reena Munda, Cluster Resource Centre Coordinator of Joda Municipality, A K Rout, Dinabandhu Pati and NK Majhi,  Headmaster, Kundrunala Primary School.

People from Kundrunala expressed their happiness and lauded the efforts of Tata Steel for opening such centre which will help their children in getting doorstep computer access.