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This man and his team helped 300 underprivileged students in TN get free higher education.
Chennai based Maatram foundation was formed by sheer coincidence. However, founder, Sujith Kumar worked very hard to continue bridging the gap between deserving underprivileged students and seats in educational institutes. The foundation also works on Santa kids and building libraries for primary sc
Ajith, a class XII student who dreams of some day becoming an engineer calls 2 walls and a tarpaulin sheet standing for a roof his home. Despite his abject poverty, Ajith had scored 1126 out of 1200 marks in his board exams, an astounding accomplishment in itself.
However, there was every chance that the young boy’s dream could come to a grinding halt as his family was so poor that he couldn’t afford even the counselling fee even though his performance could guarantee him a place in any engineering college of his choice. So he took up a job in a garage 54km from his home… till he met 39-year-old Sujith Kumar, founder of a Chennai-based NGO called Maatram Foundation, which provides free higher education to students from economically weak backgrounds.
“Ajith told me that he wants to become a civil engineer because his biggest dream is to build a house for his parents,” says Sujith. Today, thanks to Sujith, Ajith is in his third year of engineering, does not have to worry about his fees, and is one step closer to his goal.
Sujith, an HR professional from Chennai says that he started Maatram Foundation in 2013 after an incident that he refers to as sheer “coincidence.”
It happened during one of his regular 10-day long counselling sessions he conducts in April every year for students in rural Tamil Nadu. In these sessions, he travels to corners of the state to make students aware of their career options after their board exams.
One such counselling session turned out to be extraordinary when he met a young girl who bluntly asked him, “Can you recommend a course after which I will get a job for sure?” She had just taken her board exams. Her father was an alcoholic and she had lost her mother when she was only in Class VII.
She had stoically supported not only her own education but that of her two siblings too by doing domestic work in 4 houses. “Her story was like a big slap on my face. Usually, when people come and ask you for help, the first thing you do is give some money. But I realised that giving money to this kid was not going to help her. So I asked her to call me after her results. She did, and she had scored 1152 out of 1200,” remembers Sujith.
Sujith was so moved by the not only the situation of the girl but also by her sparkling performance in the midst of sheer poverty and helplessness that he called the chairman of a college soliciting a free engineering seat for her. In return, he promised to provide free placement training to final year students of that college. The chairman was so inspired that he agreed to give 20 free seats for underprivileged students. And the Maatram Foundation was born.
Sujith wanted to ensure that the cycle continues and he is able to provide seats to deserving students year after year. So he contacted Balaji Patturaj, a radio jockey, comedian, and actor who is also known as RJ Balaji. Together, they put together a radio show which reached out to students from weaker economic backgrounds and invited them to get in touch if they looking for college admissions. Fortunately, the number of seats they could offer also kept up with the growing number of students. “To date, we have not approached any colleges for seats. They approach us and we run promotions around the time of admission. We have admitted 327 students in different colleges in engineering, arts and science streams. This year we helped with about 125 admissions,” says Sujith.
The Maatram foundation has received such a phenomenal response that various educational institutions have themselves initiated talks with the foundation offering to partner with them by way of offering free admission, tuition fees, transportation charges, hostel fees, food expenses, books and stationery expenses, etc.
Sathyabama University, Chennai Institute of Technology, Dr. MGR Janaki Arts & Science College, Peri Institute of Technology, etc. are just some of the partners of the foundation. The NGO gives first priority to orphan children, then to students with single parents, and then others from underprivileged backgrounds. The driving criterion is that the applicants should be from economically backward sections of society.
Students are not helped immediately. The organization carries out its own due diligence including conducting telephonic interviews with the applicants, followed by home visits to verify their actual financial status. The next round is personal interviews with the students after which they are shortlisted.
The Maatram team has 11 core members. All of them hold fulltime day jobs. They also have a team of 10 advisors who are eminent academicians and school principals and over 200 volunteers who help with the verification process.
Besides doing this wonderful work, the foundation also works on Santa Kids – a project under which students from different Chennai schools fulfil wishes of underprivileged children by becoming their Santas.
The Foundation has also set up a library for the Chennai Primary School in Taramani with the help of funds and books received from donors. It plans to set up many such libraries in low-income schools in the city.
“People say you need money to help someone. We say you just need the intent. We believe in the power of networking. There are educational institutions that are willing to offer free seats, and there are students who need them. We are just bridging that gap,” he concludes.
You can support Sujith by writing to him at maatramfoundation@yahoo.in.