Inspiration
Samyak has its sights firmly on the educational needs of the most deprived
What started as a simple drive to distribute stationery and other necessary educational items quickly transformed into a broader vision to help in building careers of underprivileged children. Krunal Jain, Rahul Morghade started the mission and were soon joined by Vaibhav Bhagwatkar, Lalit Kahate
Give a man a fish and you feed him for a day; teach a man to fish and you feed him for a lifetime. This adage just played out for two young engineers who wanted to do something good bydistributing stationery material to destitute students at Nashik in 2012. Little did Krunal Jain and Rahul Morghade realise that a casual visit would turn out into a full fledged movement to serve the needy and underprivileged children in the city.
Circa 2015, 3 youths — Vaibhav Bhagwatkar, Lalit Kahate and Vaibhav Kahate — joined the 2-men army of Krunal and Rahul. These 5 like-minded youths have made a modest beginning by setting up Samyak Youth Foundation (SYF), which has committed to educate 166 most deprived students studying from Std II through Std X.
SYF, which was set up on January 12, 2015 — not merely a coincidence that it is celebrated as the National Youths Day, today has attracted over 100 youths, most of them doctors, engineers, CAs, teachers, businessmen, motivational speakers, who would have otherwise been on the path to making big money if not devoting themselves to the social cause.
Vaibhav says, "Even before joining hands with SYF, I was already into this social cause through my group Aroh, which distributed uniforms to poor students, clothes, woollens etc with help from my other colleagues." Krunal came across 'Aroh' on social media and it didn’t take long for all of them to be convinced that the mission could be accomplished in a better way if they joined hands.
"One of the schools in Itwari welcomed us by handing over a list of 400 students studying in Std II to X. At rough estimate, education expense per student came to around `4,000 for 400 students. We were a group of five and it was simply an impossible task”, reminisces Rahul.
Hence, the youths decided to do what they did best at their jobs too – prioritise. They conducted a survey to identify the genuine claimants and shortlisted 50 most deprived students. "We raised the funds through contribution from pockets and friends working elsewhere," says Krunal.
Finally, when the time came to distribute kits and education material they realised that it may solve problems in the short run but to ultimately benefit these students, the focus needs to shift on career building.
As a small start, 12 students including 5 girls, all children of labourers, is being coached free of cost in Itwari High School. Rahul and Krunal themselves being engineers with the irrigation department, teach the killer subjects science, maths and English. Joining them in this endeavour is Nandkishore Baisware, an IIT-Roorke pass out, who works as sectional engineer with the same department.
For the coming year, the SYF has already shortlisted 166 students from 9 schools on basis of a simple objective-type exam based on school syllabus held in March in which over 1,000 students appeared.
Enthused by the response, the NGO plans to encourage deserving students to pursue specialized courses. SYF has not kept itself confined to education but is also organizing motivational talks and campaigns for environment, health and social awareness. It organized tree plantation, blood donation camp, street plays for water conservation, personal hygiene among various issues.
SYF is welcoming all interested youths to do their bit and work for the deprived students by reaching out on 9975948047, 9860060229 & 8855081609.