SBI Foundation announces 11th edition of youth fellowships

New Delhi: A 13-month fellowship programme that helps provide rural communities with trained and informed volunteers, who facilitate development planning and also support implementation at the village level has entered its 11th year.

The SBI Foundation has announced that the 11th batch of the Youth for India Fellowship is due to start in August and the application process is till May 31.

The aim of the programme is to build a talent pool of socially aware and active youths who in turn will raise a pool of projects, through innovation and ideas, to positively impact the rural communities.

The fellowship, among other things, provides an opportunity to the urban youth for better understanding of the ground realities and challenges of rural India, and also to the overseas citizens of India to connect with their roots in a more meaningful way, the foundation said.

According to Sanjay Prakash, CEO and MD of SBI Foundation, 70 per cent of former fellows have continued to pursue meaningful careers in the social sector.

"As an organisation, we are proud to fuel social enterprise and contribute to India's development and G20 goals. Over the years, projects implemented by our fellows across 200+ locations in 20 states have helped to accelerate rural development, as also resulted in inclusive and sustained growth across the remotest corners of the country, impacting over 1 lakh lives," he said.

Citing examples, he said among the programme's successful people are Siddharth Daga, co-founder of NeoMotion that designs and customises tech-enabled wheelchairs; and Shriti Pandey, who founded Strawcture in 2018 and was featured in Forbes 30 under 30 in the 2021 edition for use of technology that helps in reduction of pollution by compressing crop waste into agri-fibre panels for industrial and commercial builds.

Prakash said YFI fellowship is a structured orientation with rural sensitisation and immersion programme-built in.

"We handhold fellows in their mentoring and capacity building while giving them the freedom to explore and experiment potential solutions in conjunction with our non-profit partners," he said.

"The programme is designed to catalyse innovation and accelerate ideation at every step of the process, enabling young talent to become future leaders," he added.