Aim to make scholars employable, laud Capgemini efforts:FFE

In the ‘joy of giving’ week, give what you can, urge Sudha Kidao of Foundation for Excellence and Aruna Jayanthi of Capgemini India.This comes on the back of CNBC-TV18’s celebration of 'Daan Utsav', where it is hosting conversations with several philanthropists for the causes they support. Kidao says that in the last 21 years, her organisation has supported over 14,000 students from economically backward class to engage students in the field of engineering and medical studies. Crediting Capgemini India for having contributed the most in a bid to empower such student scholars, she says: “Capgemini is playing a very crucial role by supporting a large number of students, and mentoring our students to provide them skills; it basically brings transformation in the lives of these students when they are employable.”In a mission to make five lakh people employable of the 10 lakh aided ones over the next 4 years, Jayanthi seeks for a dedicated assistance on educational as well as on the mentoring front. Below is the verbatim transcript of Aruna Jayanthi and Sudha Kidao's interview with Latha Venkatesh & Sonia Shenoy on CNBC-TV18.Sonia: Give us the philosophy of the NGO and what your plan is for the next couple of years?Jayanthi: Our focus in corporate social responsibility (CSR) is to look at three areas - 1) the education 2) employability and 3) environment, all of which put together contribute to our goal of building stronger communities and sustainable development. Therefore, under the education programme we looked at several things. Our goal is to touch one million people over the next four years and when we looked within that what do we cover in education, we picked scholarships for technical education, we picked girl child education. So there were multiple programmes that we have picked under the education umbrella and one of these related to the scholarships for education was with the Foundation For Excellence (FFE).Latha: Can you tell us a little more about how many scholarships you have given so far? What is the corpus you have and how does this corpus grow?Kidao: The Foundation for Excellence has been in existence for about 21 years and we have supported over 14,000 students in the last 21 years. We have given scholarships worth about Rs 58 crore and last year alone, we gave about Rs 11 crore worth of scholarships, helped about 3,500 students. So, the way we work is that we look to the community to support us, so these are students who are getting merit and means scholarships. They qualify because they are very bright and they come from financially disadvantage backgrounds. The biggest support for us has been individuals and a lot of multinational companies (MNC), for example, Capgemini is playing a very crucial role. They are supporting a large number of students a nd they are also willing to mentor our students, provide skills training and basically the transformation in the lives of these students happen when they are employable and so, that is our goal as well from the foundation, not just be a scholarship providing organisation but actually look at outcomes and then bring about a transformation in the lives of not just students but their families, their communities and the students become then role models for other students as well. So, we have grown because of the tremendous support that we have got from individuals, organisations, foundations and today, I am very proud to say that we have several MNCs behind us. Sonia: How do you decide the criteria? What is the criteria for deciding how financially backward these children are because to get a scholarship, a lot of these numbers could be fudged as well?Kidao: Exactly. Therefore, we have a very well-defined model. Students today can do a Google search for a scholarship in engineering or medicine which is our area of focus. We have an application form that they can fill online, which clearly asks them specific questions. One is what their merit, what are their marks in the CET exams or JEE mains and we have clear cut ranks by which they qualify and we have a merit criteria. Now, the way the economic background is verified is through our large base of volunteers. We have over 500 volunteers in 25 states in India.So, we have pan-India presence and let me tell you this base has grown over the last 21 years. We work with other organisations, NGOs on the ground who also help us verify student background and basically, we ensure that we are giving a scholarship to a genuinely deserving student. And we know when we do that, we are actually effecting a transformation. The scholarship amount today is about Rs 40,000 per student per year and the organisation is with the student till they complete their graduation which is four years for engineering and five for medicine. So, there is a ground verification that is done.Latha: You spoke about education, employability and environment. Take us through the employability issue. How does the foundation or how do you as a philanthropist encourage that part?Jayanthi: First, as Sudha said, our goal is not just education. Eventually these people should be able to find jobs and then fit into society and then thereby improve not just their own careers but also the community around them. So, one of these is to support and mentor these students through their education and then help them find their jobs and I met some of them. They are really highly talented and employable.Now, besides that, what we do in the employability programme, it is not just technical education like engineering or medicine or anything like that. We also look for example, we are sponsoring a nurse’s college where they will take 200 nurses and then help them through one year of training and then help them find jobs in hospitals. Similarly, with women in other areas. So, we really look at the whole community as a whole, look at where we can provide education and that education, it could be not just primary or secondary education, but also which is related to imparting skills and therefore helping them find jobs later on.As I said, our goal is to touch about one million people in the next four years and out of that, we will look at 5,00,000 of them being in the employable category. For full interview watch accompanying video.