India’s largest bank State Bank of India has started the 'SBI Youth for India fellowship' to enable young people to work for the development of India for one year.
“The SBI Youth for India fellowship is a volunteering platform initiated, funded and managed by SBI in partnership with NGOs (non-government organisations). The fellowship enables urban youth to work on rural development projects for one year,” SBI said in a statement.
For the fellowship year 2014-15, the partner NGOs are MS Swaminathan Research Foundation, BAIF Development Research Foundation, Seva Mandir, Gram Vikas and Aga Khan Rural Support Program (India).
It will have 100 SBI youth for India fellows working at 35 rural locations in 15 States across the country. The fellows can work on any of 12 programme areas covering the entire gamut of rural development from alternative energy, women’s empowerment, health, education, environmental protection to rural livelihoods, to mention a few, SBI statement said.
The applications for the SBI Youth for India fellowship (2014-15) will close on June 30, 2014. More than 4,800 candidates have already applied for the fellowship.
Started in 2011, past fellows of the fellowship programme include candidates from premier institutes such as the IIMs, IITs and foreign universities. Post-fellowship, fellows have walked different paths, to work as social entrepreneurs or with a non-profit to roll out a pan-Indian rural helpline, or for betterment of migrant workers, amongst others. Those who returned to their parent company went back with deeper knowledge about the rural psyche.
Arundhati Bhattacharya, Chairman and MD, SBI, “Through this fellowship, the youth will gain knowledge about how people make do with very little resources, how the other side of India lives”.