Message from the Chairman

Giving back to communities has never been a question of strategy for our group. It has always been a question of character. This conviction was instilled by our founding fathers, and it is one I carry forward more as a privilege than an obligation. AM Foundation is how we express our belief that a business earns its place in society through what it gives back, as much as through what it produces.

The need is real and it is urgent. A recent NITI Aayog report on India’s school education system found that nearly 99,000 government schools lack functional girls’ toilets. Inadequate sanitation and menstrual hygiene infrastructure directly contribute to absenteeism and dropout among girls at the secondary level, where the national dropout rate stands at 11.5 per cent. Close to 30 lakh adolescent girls dropped out of school in just five years.

• In Tamil Nadu, AM Foundation has created gender-inclusive sanitation facilities in government schools, giving over 40,000 students access to clean, safe washrooms, located primarily around our manufacturing plants.
• The Happy Periods programme, which opens conversations on menstrual health and hygiene for both girls and boys, has directly engaged over 135,000 students and extended its reach to more than 700,000 people across 45 schools. When a girl has access to a safe washroom, she is more likely to stay in school. When a young person understands their own body, they carry that confidence forward. These are the upstream investments that yield downstream change.

We invest at the source, before problems become crises.

In practice, that means early healthcare intervention. Sanitation that removes the barriers standing between a girl and her education. Awareness that travels from the classroom into the home and the community. The results – reduced dropout of school-going adolescent girls, healthier outcomes, greater participation – take time to surface. That is why our commitment is long-term.

None of this is possible through intent alone. It takes member corporates pooling resources. It takes doctors, health workers, and educators who show up in underserved communities, day after day. At its best, a public-private partnership is a shared responsibility, and AM Foundation is how we fulfill ours.

How an institution chooses to use its success ultimately defines its character. That belief has been at the heart of our group since its founding, and it continues to guide us. When a business creates genuine social value alongside economic value, it builds the kind of trust and standing that endures well beyond any financial cycle. That is the commitment I make, on behalf of AM Foundation, as we continue this work with passion, purpose and deep humility.