KOCHI:
Fifteen years ago employees of the Cochin Shipyard Limited started a Corporate Social Responsibility programme contributing medicines at regular intervals to cancer patients at the Government General Hospital; today they came in person to deliver humanitarian gift of a different kind — that of therapeutic music.
Members of the Cochin Shipyard Recreation Club and their ‘Jeevakarunya Samithi’ collaborated with the all-Wednesday Arts and Medicine show for its 211th episode, presenting a musical tribute to the genius Devarajan Master, alongside a number of other memorable melodies. The programme, organised by the Kochi Biennale Foundation every week at the hospital, featured singers Sedhun M S, Anuroop Mohan S, Shilpa Madhavan, Raneesh P M, Ratheesh V S, Gibin T K, Stella Thampy, Rajesh P K and Jayakumaran Assari .
Raneesh began the musical show with “Chakravarthini’, followed by “Amma Endrazhaikaathe’, a Tamil number by Sedhun. The singers belted out a total of sixteen melodies, which included Malayalam and Hindi songs, to much appreciation from the crowd.
Arts and Medicine, an initiative of the Kochi Biennale Foundation (KBF) in partnership with the Mehboob Memorial Orchestra and sponsored by CAFS (Casino Air Caterers and Flight Services), offers therapeutic music for the solace of the patients at the hospital.
Today’s concert also celebrated 15 years of Cochin Shipyard’s CSR initiative to distribute medicines to patients at the Oncology department of the Government General hospital, Ernakulam every two months, through its Jeevakarunya Samithi.
The Samithi functions along with the Recreation Club, which started in 1972. The Club accepts monthly contributions from the employees and has been donating medicines worth nearly five lakhs every two months to the hospital’s oncology department.
M D Varghese, General Manager and CSR Head, Cochin Shipyard Ltd; Sunil Kumar, Deputy General Manager and Recreation Club president, Cochin Shipyard Ltd; General Hospital Superintendent Dr. Anitha A , Deputy Superintendent Dr. Asha and Oncology Department Head Dr. Balamuralee Krishna of General hospital, Rajith PM, Recreation Club Secretary, Anoop B Kumar, Ex- General Secretary and ex-officio Committee member of the club, Madhusudanan, Ambikeshan, Absar, S Mohan and Rajeev also attended the event.
GM & CSR Head, M D Varghese on behalf of Cochin Shipyard Jeevakarunya Samithi handed over rupees five lakh worth of chemotherapy medicines to the General hospital Superintendent.