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Youth for Development Inspiring stories of change from the State Bank of India’s Youth Fellows
Youth for DevelopmentInspiring stories of change from the State Bank of India’s Youth Fellows
Youth for Development
Inspiring stories of change from the State Bank of India’s Youth Fellows
“The future belongs to the young generation”
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India’s demographic
potential offers us an
unprecedented edge
meet their needs. India has been observing a National Youth Day on 12th of January every year since 1985 in honour of Swami Vivekananda whose thinking and philosophy had galvanized the youth into a potent force. We too at SBI have conceptualized an initiative –“Youth for India” Fellowship—to accelerate growth and development in the rural sector while transforming Fellows into caring citizens with a more holistic worldview. Our programme in association with reputed non-government organizations (NGOs), encourages the youth in joining hands with rural communities, empathize with their struggles and aspirations for equitable and sustainable growth. We need to continually tap into this vitality as the hope of the world rests on the shoulders of this cohort. The International Youth Day celebrated globally on the 12th of August will go a long way in adding to the growing awareness about the potential of the young.
Arundhati BhattacharyaChairman, State Bank of India
I often mull over Mahatma Gandhi’s oft quoted statement “You must be the change you wish to see in the world”. I feel it is primarily addressed to the youth, the trustees of tomorrow. As such I thought it quite apt for the celebration of the International Youth Day. It is especially relevant for India, as India is set to become the youngest country by 2020 with over 60 percent of its population by then falling in the working age group. This demographic potential offers us an unprecedented edge and it is for our youth to draw on the words of the Mahatma and leave their imprint on the world.
The future belongs to the young generation and it is imperative that today’s youth empower themselves with knowledge and information which will give them the strength and conviction to stand up and demand that the right path be followed. They need to be professional, acquire the right skills, gather the correct attitude so that their energies can be focussed on bringing about the change they wish to see—a change towards equality, better quality of life, health and environment.
The youth today are very aspirational and we must provide adequate resources and the enablers to
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“Empower young people to play a strong role in building a more inclusive and sustainable future for all”
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about the role and the potential of young people in today’s world.
Experience from across the worldreveals that when young people lack opportunities to engage proactively and realize their potential, development may be affected. In turn economic and social crises can impact young people. It is essential to include and empower young people to play a strong role in building a more inclusive and sustainable future for all.
Yuri Afanasiev United Nations Resident Coordinator and UNDP Resident Representative
Young people are among the greatest assets countries have. For India, which is estimated to have 356 million young people, it offers a huge demographic dividend. The energy, enthusiasm and innovation of young people can be an important driving force of development.
The State Bank of India’s Youth for Development Fellowship recognizes this spirit of young people. The corporate social responsibility initiative undertaken by one of the country’s largest public sector banks places young people in rural areas along with established NGOs and allows them to call on their ingenuity, innovation and passion to make a difference in people’s lives. As the stories in this booklet tell us, it’s transforming both their lives, and the lives of the local communities they support.
We commend the State Bank of India for their commitment to this exciting initiative and in particular, the Chairperson, under whose leadership this Fellowship Programme continues to expand.
We can think of no more appropriate setting to celebrate the achievements of these Fellows than International Youth Day, celebrated each year on 12 August, which raises awareness
Young people are the driving force of development
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SBI’s Youth for India Fellowship allows young people to follow their heart
Youth for India is a corporate social responsibility initiative launched by State Bank of India to bridge the growing urban–rural divide in India. The Fellowship allows young Indians to follow their heart and implement innovations that promote the socio-economic development of rural areas. Launched in 2011, ‘Youth for India’ is a thirteen month-long Fellowship that enables bright, urban youth to work on rural development projects. During the course of the Fellowship, the Fellows live locally near the project site, working closely with experienced non-governmental organizations.
SBI Youth for India Fellows are from diverse academic backgrounds including from some of the best institutions in India, like the Indian Institute of Technology, Indian Institute of Management, National Institute of Design, National Institute of Fashion Technology, Jawaharlal Nehru University and Mumbai University. Many have worked in the private sector in leading corporate and consulting companies, such as the Tata Group, Reliance, Deloitte, Accenture, IBM, Infosys, Ernst & Young, Thomson Reuters, CISCO
and L&T, before taking a break from their lucrative careers to apply for the Fellowship.
The current batch of Youth for India Fellows was selected from among 6,500 applicants. More than half the current Fellows are women. Projects undertaken by the Fellows include health and sanitation, behaviour change, income generation activities rooted in the local economy, and strengthening local governance institutions.
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Showcasing inspirational stories:
Youth for Development Dialogue
On 12 August 2015, to mark the occasion of International Youth Day, a few of State Bank of India’s Youth for India Fellows will showcase innovations they have undertaken during 2014-15 in four states, including Gujarat, Madhya Pradesh, Odisha and Rajasthan.
Projects undertaken by SBI Fellows complement flagship initiatives of the Government of India such as the Swachh Bharat Mission, the Beti Bachao Beti Padhao Scheme and Smart Villages.
Fellows will be presenting their work to an audience of young people, leading development practitioners, policymakers, representatives from bilateral and multilateral agencies, corporate sector and UN agencies. The dialogue is organized by the State Bank of India and the United Nations in India.
These presentations will be but a few of the many inspiring efforts undertaken through the Youth for India Fellowship programme managed by State Bank of India. You can read more inspirational stories at http://www.youthforindia.org/
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“Every woman bleeds and it should not be a matter of shame. Every woman has the right to earn and she should not refrain”
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Simren Singh Let’s Talk Menstruation!
Simren is from Dehradun. She holds a Bachelor’s degree from Lady Shri Ram College for Women, New Delhi and has completed an MA in International Relations from Jawaharlal Nehru University.
Twenty-five-year-old Simren has always been convinced of the need to break the taboos that surround menstruation in India and has worked relentlessly to create awareness on the issue. Better menstrual hygiene promotes improved health status of women, in particular teenage girls. But women in rural areas lack convenient choices in the use of sanitary napkins.
Many rural women adopt practices that are unhygienic and contribute to their poor health. As a Youth for India Fellow, Simren worked along with Seva
Mandir, an NGO in Udaipur, to bring about behaviour change in menstrual hygiene practices among tribal women in Khervara. She also helped promote income generation by training the women in the village, most of whom were wives of migrant workers, to make and sell eco-friendly, hand-made cloth sanitary napkins.
The first batch of sanitary napkins was produced by 10 women. The women started by using a machine made available by Jatan Sansthan. Seeing the enthusiasm of the local community
in adopting the changed behaviour, the village development committee has sanctioned a new sewing machine so that more sanitary napkins can be produced for the women in the village.
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“I hope I have inspired village communities and local government bodies that ‘Clean India’ is not just a phrase. It is actionable with very little effort”
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Priyvrat Clean Villages, Clean India
Priyvrat is from Haryana. He studied Mechanical Engineering at Maharshi Dayanand University in Rohtak, Haryana.
Thirty-one-year-old Priyvrat joined the SBI Youth for India Fellowship with one aim – to promote community hygiene in rural India. He took a sabbatical from his job at the State Bank of India and headed to Odisha to pilot a project on decentralized waste management systems to improve sanitary conditions in Hardingo village in Ganjam district.In a span of six months, Priyvrat was able to mobilize 177 households to adopt solid and liquid waste management and segregation practices. With the assistance of Gram Vikas, a local NGO, the gram sabha and the
village sarpanch, he conducted waste audits in the village. In meetings with the villagers, he explained the benefits of community hygiene. With community support, he organized cleanliness drives, street plays and drawing competitions among school students to help promote waste management practices. By installing colour-coded dustbins to segregate waste, thereby reducing the time-consuming job of waste segregation, he made it easier for the villagers to adopt the change. He also promoted revenue generation by setting up a system for the community to sell
recyclable material to the local scrap dealer, which was a great motivator for the villagers. Hardingo village will soon be a clean village. Priyvrat’s pilot project has been approved by district authorities and will be rolled out in many more villages in the district.
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“Good governance backed with the right technology can transform people’s lives. Through this Fellowship I help motivate people to participate in governance and be change leaders”
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Ashwini Shelke Good Governance, Better Future
Ashwini holds a graduate degree in Economics from Mumbai University. She used to work part-time as a teacher before being selected for the Fellowship programme.
As the daughter of a village sarpanch, Ashwini Shelke grew up knowing the transformational power of good governance, especially at the local level. Which is why she chose to create awareness about the role and functioning of panchayats and promote e-governance as her initiative under the Youth for India programme. For the past nine months, Ashwini has been working in Kanpuri and Sidri village in Madhya Pradesh to promote her vision of good governance. In Sidri, she organized the first ever mahila sabha to address women’s grievances and is also credited for the village
electing its first woman sarpanch. Mahila sabhas are now held regularly, at least once a month, in the village. Ashwini has also spent considerable time in raising awareness among the villagers, particularly farmers, by organizing film screenings and a door-to-door campaign about government schemes that they can access to supplement their income. She has worked with local government officials to bridge the gap between the government and the people. In collaboration with the Aga Khan Rural Support Programme, Ashwini
is supervising the construction of the panchayat bhavan’s e-governance cell and is also providing basic computer training to the villagers. She believes that the e-governance cell will enable the residents of Kanpuri to access government schemes through the Internet and assist in providing facilities such as printing and photo copying services.
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“The SBI Fellowship has been a very gratifying experience which has provided a new direction to my life and understanding of how technology can help build livelihoods”
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Anant Vats Skilling India
With a degree in Mechanical Engineering and a Masters from the Indian Institute of Technology, Chennai, Anant spent the last five years as an entrepreneur before taking the plunge and moving to Gujarat as an SBI Fellow.
Technology and how it can be used for social change has always fascinated Anant Vats. It’s this passion that he brings to in his work with bamboo artisans in the Dang region of Gujarat under the Fellowship programme.
Thirty-three-year-old Anant has introduced innovative mechanical tools to help bamboo artisans improve the quality of their products and reduce the drudgery associated with working with bamboo. In close collaboration with BAIF Development Research Foundation, Pune, Anant has developed a number of low cost prototypes,
including a bamboo axe and a splitter. The bamboo axe helps in cutting bamboo into four or eight uniform splits in one go. This axe prototype is not only cheaper compared to the traditional axe, but also requires less effort. The bamboo splitter developed by Anant helps mechanize the process of splitting bamboo. He has also introduced a heat etcher, a tool that helps bamboo artisans make decorative patterns on their products, and a box sander, an electrical powered tool that helps reduce the time required to finish bamboo products, typically a painful and time-consuming process.
Nearly 40 artisans in two pilot villages, Ambapara and Dagarpada, are producing more than double the quantity of bamboo mugs. They have witnessed a 40 percent increase in income through the sales of these products at a local tourist spot in Gheeradoot. Anant is now developing a financial proposal to secure funding for bamboo artisans to enable more of them to purchase these prototype tools.
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“Working with tribal children, most of them first-generation learners, has taught me that all kids have the same potential. With little honing and attention, they can do wonders”
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Sunayana Chatrapathy Learning, the Fun Way!
Sunayana is from Bangalore. She holds a Master’s degree in Business Administration from the Symbiosis Institute of Business Management, Pune.
Till a year ago, 31-year-old Sunayana Chatrapathy spent most of her days shuttling between glass cabins and meeting rooms as a Human Resource Manager for a Bangalore-based technology firm. But Sunayana knew that was not her true calling. In search of something more meaningful and gratifying, she quit her job. Today, Sunayana is an SBI Fellow, working and living in a remote location in Odisha’s tribal belt, imparting education to 500 tribal children in a local school. Together with NGO, Gram Vikas, she has developed an activity-based learning module for primary school students. It aims to make
learning fun and engaging for these young children. She employs a technique called math manipulative – which uses pattern blocks, cubes, fraction circles, geo-boards and more - to teach concepts and vocabulary as well as encourage imaginative play and exploration. She is also training teachers to ensure sustainability of the project. Till now, she has trained 35 teachers in 30 different concepts. Another feather in Sunayana’s hat has been introducing computer training to the students and teachers. With her assistance, teachers are now computer
literate, using a computer to prepare monthly reports, download educational videos in Odiya and send emails. Sunayana has also looked for innovative ways to fund her initiative, using social media tools like blogs and Twitter to raise awareness about her project and the challenges she faces. Recently Pratham, an innovative learning organization aimed at improving the quality of education in India, sent her books worth INR 25,000 after reading her blog. And her tweet compelled a stranger to donate a laptop that the teachers now use in their classes to show videos. Sunayana will finish her Fellowship in October but has no plans to back to corporate life. She hopes to work with government schools and strengthen its curriculum.
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“I have learnt is to be patient. At first, tribal women didn’t even talk to me. Now they are my friends and accept my guidance. If you want to see results, that’s the way to go”
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Diksha is from Allahabad, Uttar Pradesh. She has a Bachelor’s degree in Economics from the University of Delhi and a Diploma in Human Rights, specializing in Women’s Rights from the Indian Institute of Human Rights, Delhi.
Diksha Mishra Healthy Women, Healthy Environment
Unlike most 20-somethings, Diksha Mishra did not plan a vacation with her friends after finishing college. Nor was she looking for a job. She had her mind set on a different agenda – to volunteer her time for rural development, especially for women. So at 23, she packed her bags and left for a remote and nondescript tribal village in Dang, Gujarat to work on a project to improve women’s health and create an alternate source of income for them. At first she hoped to create a viable market for locally produced poppadum but something more pressing caught her attention. Over 90 percent of households she visited were battling
with thick indoor smoke from traditional cookstoves. Not only were women most adversely affected, it was a health hazard for the whole family. Diksha addressed the problem by developing smokeless cookstoves with L-shaped chimney to avoid making holes in the roofs of the kaccha or mud houses. The cookstove is made from mud and locally sourced material. She added an iron grate on top of the cookstove, which allows food to be cooked faster. This innovation has reduced firewood consumption by nearly half. Earlier if cooking one meal required 10 logs of wood, this cookstove uses only five, which means women
spend fewer hours collecting firewood and have more time for themselves. To ensure the sustainability of the project, Diksha invited experts from a nearby village to train 21 women from local self help groups to build and install these cookstoves themselves. Today eight women travel within Dang district, building and installing these cookstoves for INR 400. This includes a labour charge of INR 100. These easy-to-make cookstoves require only one hour and women can easily make three to four such stoves a day. This earns women an additional INR 2,000 every week. Working with the Aga Khan Rural Support Programme, Diksha has now expanded her pilot project to 4-5 villages in Dang and one village in Bihar. She has installed over 30 smokeless cookstoves and demand is only growing.
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@UNinIndia
/UnitedNationsIndia
United Nations India55, Lodi Estate, Post Box No: 3059,New Delhi – 110003, IndiaPh: +91-11-46532333Email: [email protected]: in.one.un.org
SBI Youth for Indiac/o State Bank of IndiaCSR DepartmentAir India Building, Seventh FloorNariman Point, Mumbai – 400021Ph: +91-08025554678Email: [email protected]: youthforindia.org
@sbi_yfi
/sbiyouthforindia
Photo Credits: © Pranab K Aich/ UN in India | © Mithila Jariwala/UN in India | © Ruhani Kaur/UN in India | © Dhiraj Singh/UN in India | © Ishan Tankha/UN in India
