SBI – Youth for India Fellowship

SBI – Youth for India Fellowships

  

India needs its best minds… 

… to take up the challenge of becoming Real Leaders.

Are you ready to commit one year of your life to creating change that matters? Change, that will help transform rural India.

If yes, SBI Youth for India is a fellowship programme for outstanding young professionals and graduates, who are passionate about touching lives and seek to lead the change for a better India. You will work on projects with experienced NGOs in rural India and use your skills to catalyse development at the grass root level.

Ignite your ideas to impact rural development. Join the movement to transform rural India.

India's Rural Challenge

With about 70% of India's population, i.e. approximately 833 million people, 'Rural India' can well be termed as the 'Real India'. To make India's growth story a truly inclusive one, it becomes imperative that the development challenges facing rural India are overcome.

India's challenge of rural development has many dimensions. Here are some facts that we need to think about: 

Over 90% of the rural population is dependent on agro-based activities. With agriculture being in crisis, 13,718 farmers' suicides were documented in India in 2012 only.

The per capita expenditure in rural areas is only Rs.40 per day.

India has more than 6,00,000 villages. Nearly 50% of these villages do not have all weather roads making physical connectivity to these villages highly expensive.

14.2% of these villages do not have year-round drinking water and much of the water consumed by villagers is of poor quality, which does not meet the prescribed WHO standard.

While the average literacy rate in rural areas is around 70%, it is as low as 20-25% among women in backward areas. Women also suffer from poor reproductive health with deliveries performed with the assistance of untrained mid wives in the absence of qualified doctors.

A major cause of poverty among India's rural population is lack of access to adequate productive assets and financial resources. More than 85% of rural families own less than 2 hectares of land, which are sub-divided and scattered in several locations. The productivity of these smallholdings is low because of inability of poor land holders to carry out tillage operations on time, invest in necessary agricultural inputs and adopt advanced technologies which can boost crop production. Further, most of the small farmers are deprived of irrigation facilities, compelling them to depend on rainfall, which makes it difficult to optimise crop yields.

Another dimension to India's rural development challenge is that traditional Indian society is male dominated and women have not received equal opportunities for their development. Lack of education for girls and social taboos have also hindered their development and quality of life.

In the absence of significant development of industries and services, the rural population has to depend on agriculture or migrate to urban areas in search of livelihood.

For India's rural poor, coping with the worst and hoping for better days has become their way of life. To address these problems, it is necessary to initiate and strengthen development programmes that empower India's rural poor to overcome the challenges they face.

SBI Youth for India is a movement for India's best young minds who are passionate about fuelling positive change in India. It involves joining hands with rural communities, empathizing with their struggles and connecting with their aspirations. These youth will work with experienced NGOs on challenging grass root development projects to bring about a change that will ensure India's growth path is equitable and sustainable.

Sources:
1.Census Provisional Results - 2011.
2.Agriculture Census 2010-11.
3.Ministry of Statistics and Programme Implementation 2008.
4.National Crime Records Bureau Data.

Last Date 30^th June 2014

For more visit: http://www.youthforindia.org/