In today’s fast paced society, juggling work, personal life and all the associated demands and pressures can overwhelm an individual. This often means that personal health and fitness take a backseat in terms of our priorities. This fact holds even more importance when you look at a city like Mumbai where one does not have a single second to waste. The upcoming Mumbai Marathon thus provides a valuable opportunity to buck this trend and emphasize the importance of leading a healthy lifestyle.
While the Mumbai Marathon has become a part of the fabric of Mumbai, at Viacom18 they are participating with a twist. The company has consistently encouraged its employees to participate in the Mumbai Marathon. Its Group CEO, Mr. Sudhanshu Vats is an avid marathoner himself and has already completed 10 marathons. He holds the Akanksha Foundation close to his heart and will be running in support of the Foundation.
Mr. Vats has also initiated an internal campaign #DonateAMile, where people can either run a mile with him or donate to the Foundation. In fact, he regularly holds training runs before the marathon and quite a few employees of Viacom18 join him for a mile-long run.
This year they are taking it a step further where along with him, select few employees of Viacom18 would also run the marathon for the kids while campaigning for it.
Viacom18 has introduced Stepathlon within the organization to achieve better physical and mental health in a fun and motivating manner with a variety of fitness tracking, social, education and gamification tools.
After 3 months of participating in Stepathalon, 20 top performers were chosen to run for the kids of Akanksha Foundation at Standard Chartered Mumbai Marathon on Jan 15th 2017.
The 20 employees came together with 20 kids Akanksha Foundation and formed 4 groups of 5. The organization is also looking forward to raise Rs 10 lacs through crowd funding via KETTO. This drive is being led by Group CEO, Mr. Sudhanshu Vats, who encourages his employees to keep fit whether through running or otherwise.
The link to the fundraiser is as follows with live updates about the amount raised: https://viacom18.ketto.org/
This has resulted in a unique internal competition where there are 4 teams going to be cheered on in their fundraising and fitness goals by the entire organization.
Mr. Sudhansu Vats’ personal involvement and doing something as fun and encouraging and grooming his fellow colleagues for the Mumbai Marathon and for the noble cause attached to it is something that could not be seen in any other organization.
