Caritas introduces organizational strengthening policies

Caritas India is trying to put effective policies in place, as part of the organizational strengthening activity and to also address the organization’s requirements because of the growing complexity of the social environment and development sector realities.

A policy orientation session is organised for its employee on 25 January 2023 to ensure organisational policies and actions are adhered to at every level. It involved creating, documenting, and enforcing policies to ensure ongoing alignment.

Fr. Sushil Modi, Administrator, Caritas India and Ms. Seema, HR Lead set the context putting significance and backdrop for revisiting the old policies and formation of the new policies. Mr. Francis Rebello, Consultant took a detailed session to orient the employee on the Anti-terrorism Policy, Anti–Corruption Policy, Whistleblower Policy and Conflict of Interest Policy.

Anti-terrorism Policy – The essence of this policy lies in denouncing all forms of terrorism and it makes and will continue to make all efforts to ensure that none of its resources, specifically its own and donor funding is used, implicitly or explicitly for any forms.

Anti–Corruption Policy – This policy aims to ensure Caritas in all its operations and engagements has an honest and ethical manner with a zero-tolerance approach to all forms of financial criminal practices, fraud, bribery, corruption, and non-compliance to financial integrity.

Whistleblower Policy – The pivotal point of this policy is that of pointing towards the faithful stewardship of Caritas India’s resources, financial or non-financial, and mandates to report any suspect financial, statutory, or accounting impropriety and/or any fraudulent activity.

Conflict of Interest Policy – This policy aims to ensure that conflicts of interest are identified, disclosed, and addressed in a rigorous and transparent way to promote confidence in all its stakeholders in the honesty, integrity, and ethics in all our processes.

The session centred around bringing clarity to the various aspects of the four policies in terms, Process, Procedure, Norm, Rules, Customs, and Regulations. Some of the core values of Caritas like Stewardship, accountability, and respect formed the central point of the conversation. The program had both a mix of group activity and real scenario examples. These policies will be applicable to all Caritas Associates.