Freshworks just inaugurated its own park in Chennai
Saturday, 14 July 2018, was a very special day for us at Freshworks. We planted close to 180 saplings in a land that was barren for more than 10 years! It took us a year to get there.
The brilliant minds in our organization create, market, and sell our products to target audience. However, apart from our job responsibilities, a few of us also wanted to contribute towards social responsibility. Tarun Phillip and Akash Sivasankaran, two young men from our organization had taken up the responsibility to do something productive for the society. We asked the right questions in our internal meetings and this paved way to a beautiful CSR initiative.
Chennai had it rough, in December 2015 & December 2016. The number of trees that were uprooted in 2016 was close to 2,800 . The aftermath of the cyclone was so bad that trees that were more than 30 years of age fell to the ground. These were seeds that were sown a long time ago.
Something had to be done! Most of the efforts that were taken by the government and other organisations were tremendous. Around the same time Tarun joined Freshworks, he would cross a barren land everyday on his commute to work. This land was used as a public dump yard. It was lying there waiting for someone to clean it up and give it a fresh outlook.
After identifying this land, we had joined hands with Nizhal Foundation and started working towards creating a green space. When we began, this land was a dry bed which was covered in trash, not being utilized for what it stands for.
As part of choosing the CSR activities, employees were asked to submit their proposals and one of them happened to be Freshwalks and this along with another two were chosen as our first few CSR programmes. We have a small team which is a part of this, whose main goal is to give this land what it deserves.
Usually there are a lot of revolutions which are fought that requires sacrifice and eventually result in a lot of vain. But there are some that blossom and prosper through resilience. A group of women can stand witness to this statement. During the year 1970, a movement called ‘Chipko’ took place that shook the world and drived a sense of societal responsibility towards protecting the environment and rescuing forests. We call these kind of movements the ‘Green revolution’.
Although less in comparison to Chipko, that Saturday– one such movement was re–lived.
Finally after a lot of hard & smart work, Freshwalks park, our company’s very own ‘Green revolution’ is sprouting and we hope that in a few years, this resembles a mini urban forest inside the city.
