Shillong,March 27: The SBI Youth for India, a flagship programme of SBI Foundation is now recognized as one of the premier rural development fellowships. It is a 13-month long fellowship programme that enables India’s brightest young minds to work on rural development projects with experienced NGOs. The fellowship offers the best platform in the country to find solutions for rural India’s most pressing challenges.
The fellowship was launched in 2011, in partnership with three reputed NGOs and 27 fellows of the pilot batch completed it successfully. After a review of its impact, the fellowship was scaled up and in September 2014, the second batch started.
In the past four batches, our fellows have worked on diverse issues covering 12 major thematic program areas including health, education, technology, social enterprise, etc. Their projects have been taken forward by the NGO, the village community or a fellow from the new batch. The 2016-17 batch of 54 fellows benefitted 2500 families across 30 rural locations, alone.
Presently, the fifth batch of 74 fellows are continuing their fellowship journey at 35 rural locations across 12 states of India in partnership with 6 NGOs namely BAIF development research foundation, Dhan foundation, Gram Vikas, SevaMandir, AKRSP-I and, Barefoot College. We have a strong network of more than 180 alumni, approximately 60 per cent continue to be actively involved in the development sector.
The SBI Youth for India, are happy to announce that the application process for the 2018-2019 batch has now started. Every year, we aim to take the fellowship one step further and bring in more youth to work towards the betterment of the community. This year too, we are looking for the youth who wants to work with the communities and look beyond classrooms and cubicles.
Elaborating about the programme’s role in connecting empowered youth to develop the backward villages, Mr. Mahendra Kumar Rekhi, MD, SBI Foundation said, “SBI Foundation aims at making SBI Youth for India fellowship a platform for the educated youngsters to use their skills for the benefit of rural communities.
With this, we try to create on the ground impact by directly empowering the communities. We want more and more youth to participate in the program and contribute towards the development of the society”. SBI Foundation will shortly be signing an MOU with RRTC, Umran for partnering for SBI Youth for India fellowship. Applications for the year 2018-19 have been open and those interested should submit the applications online.
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