SBI Youth For India Fellowship

SBI Youth for India Fellowship

SBI Youth for India, the flagship programme of SBI Foundation, 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. Presently, the fifthbatchof 74 fellows have started 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, approximately60 per cent continue to be actively involved in the development sector.

What’s The Aim of the SBI YFI Fellowship Programme?

SBI Youth for India is a 13- month rural development fellowship, a flagship programme of SBI Foundation in partnership with reputed NGOs. It seeks to solve rural India’s most pressing problems by:

• Providing educated Indian youth with an opportunity to touch lives and create positive change at the grass root level in rural India.
• Providing NGOs working on development projects in rural India with educated manpower whose skill sets can be used to catalyze rural development.
• Promoting a forum for the Programme alumni to share ideas and contribute to rural development throughout their professional life

Who Are We Looking For?

• A highly motivated graduate, either a young professional or fresh out of college
• Aged between 21 and 32 as on the date of commencement of programme
• An Indian citizen
• A team player with proactive approach and strong leadership skills
• People-oriented as you will be interacting with rural communities on a constant basis
• Willing to commit to a 13 month long rural fellowship programme and adapt to life in challenging rural conditions

Fellowship Support

• Stipend: Rs 15,000/- to meet living expenses
• Local Transport Allowance: Rs 1,000/- per month
• A Readjustment Allowance of Rs. 30,000/- upon successful completion of the Fellowship
• To and fro travel costs of the Fellows from his/her place of residence to project location as well as for training programmes
• Medical Insurance
• Mentorship by experienced professionals in the field
• Access to the Community through well-established Partner NGOs
• Linkages with premier organizations of the country

Fellow Profiles:

Our fellows come from a diverse background in terms of education and work experience. They leave their comfort zones to live in a remote location and work for a community they have never heard of before. Our current batch is on ground and there are several projects related to livelihoods, social enterprise, education, health, etc.

Profiles of a few of our fellows who are creating impact in communities:

Pratibha Krishnaiah (2017-18 SBI Youth for India Batch):

Originally from Bengaluru, Pratibha Krishnaiah worked as a SBI Youth for India fellow in the year 2014-15 in the state of Champawat, Uttarakhand with our partner NGO, BAIF. During her fellowship journey, she observed that women in the hills did all the household and farming related chores, yet were not given importance socially. Hence, she started an all-women social enterprise known as ‘Himalayan Blooms’. Himalayan Blooms focused on improving the skill sets of women who knit and crochet in the villages of Champawat, and provide a market for the handcrafted products.

Pratibha started working with a SHG associated with BAIF. Her aim was to make the women capable enough to earn for themselves and lead a life of dignity. Post her fellowship, she saw potential in the venture and stayed back. With support from incubators from USA, she expanded the project. Presently, more than 70 women are attached with Himalayan Blooms.

Shriti Pandey (2016-17 SBI Youth for India Fellow):

A construction management student in New York University, Shriti Pandey joined the fellowship in 2016. Having lived out of country for quite some time, she wanted to come back to India and do something for the growth and development of the country.

She worked with our partner NGO, AKRSP-(I) in Khandwa block, Madhya Pradesh. When she entered the village, she was sure she wanted to work on an intervention that lasts long. Hence, she chose to work on the project started by 2015-16 batch fellow Ms. Soumya Mohil. The project objective was to train PashuSakhis (certified livestock nurses from different villages) to build salt bricks (a mineral mixtures brick that helps in growth of cattle) to supplement cattle feed and as an alternate income generation activity. Salt bricks help in increasing the body weight, draught power and milk yield of cattle and goat.

Under the all women led FPO, PandhanaPashuPalak Company, Shriti started production of salt bricks and also introduced mineral mixtures to increase milk yield in cattle. She provided market linkages for the same. Her project is now taken forward by current batch fellow Aubrey Lee. This is one of the projects initiated by a SBI Youth for India fellow and is sustained by the forthcoming batches.

Post her fellowship, Shriti started her own company named ‘Strawture LLP’ which manufactures eco-friendly panels to replace bricks as a building part

Satyajit Borgohain (2017-18 SBI Youth for India Batch):

Originally from Assam, Satyajit wasn’t very fluent with his Hindi when he first started working in the Dedtalai village of Madhya Pradesh with our partner NGO, AKRSP-I. He realized that though there were many generic problems in the village, the health and sanitation of women was widely ignored. He started working with the Asha workers to improve the immunization of pregnant women and spread awareness on menstruation and women health among villagers. He has gone door to door to make sure women were getting the right vaccination at the right time of pregnancy. Being a male, he had to work a lot on building trust with the women. Now, women from the community call him their brother and share with them personal problems related to health and menstruation – a topic that otherwise is a huge taboo and women don’t discuss about it among themselves either.

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