Varsha Vitthal More, a resident of Apnshil in Raigad district of Maharashtra had to drop her education after high school, like thousands of other young girls in the country. Varsha belongs to a family of six people and her hard-working father who works as a laborer with a pharmaceutical company earns a salary of Rs. 8000/-. Getting any kind of a job apart from one involving labour seemed like a pipe dream for her and if it hadn’t been for the intervention of Friends Union for Energising Lives (FUEL), Varsha could well have been one of those many young women who ended up getting married and pursuing household chores for the rest of her life, with no income of her own. However, with the guidance and backing of the dedicated and energetic team at FUEL, Varsha today holds the job of a General Duty Assistant at Aayush Hospital in Rasayani in her native Raigad district. A life-changing move for the young girl, brought about by the simple intervention of bringing an opportunity to her door.

But then that is what the work of FUEL is all about.  Says Chairman Ketan Deshpande, an Ashoka Fellow and also a Pavate Research Fellow from JBS, University of Cambridge, UK; “We know that there is immense potential in the youth of India. What they require is the right platform, the right guidance and the right mentoring at the right age. Given this, they can transform their education pattern and the pattern of their lives.”

With a mission of Every Student with Equal Education and Career Opportunities, FUEL is a non-profit organisation which has its origins in Pune and was initiated in 2006. It emerged from the idea of bringing to underprivileged students information and opportunities in education, vocational training and careers. With a dedicated focus on career counselling, skill development and scholarships, FUEL has counselled more than 10 lakh students in India and East Africa. In India it has reached out to youngsters in more than 13 states including Maharashtra, Punjab, Delhi, Assam, West Bengal and Orissa, to name a few, through 3 unique programmes-Edu Raksha, Edu Suraksha and Career Disha. The Edu Raksha project concentrates on skill development and career counselling for the children of defence jawans. The families of 20,000 jawans have been impacted by this initiative and FUEL is now looking at extending it to all 137 Army Schools across India, catering to over 1 lakh wards of jawans.  Edu Suraksha is a career counselling and scholarship project for children of police personnel in Maharashtra while Career Disha is a project involving 170 schools of the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation in Mumbai as well as a number of schools for underprivileged children in Nagpur and also in the states of Rajasthan, Punjab and Haryana.

Says Santosh Huralikoppi Chief Mentor of the organization and also a Pavate Research Fellow from JBS, University of Cambridge, UK; “We take care to give customized and relevant career counselling and meaningful vocational training to youth who otherwise would not have had access to this.”

In response to a very obvious requirement which FUEL’s career counselling in schools have thrown up, the organization has set up four Career Guidance and Skilling Centers located in Nagpur, Pune, Aurangabad and Bhubaneswar.

Says Huralikoppi; “Our research has shown that weak economic status prevents many youngsters from utilising their potential. Apart from that, a high percentage of youth, after graduation and even post-graduation remain unemployed or are under-employed and under-paid. This is primarily due to lack of professional and employment-driven training. Moreover, youth are not encouraged to pursue careers in line with their interests. They have to accept whatever job opportunity comes their way. It is our aim to enable Indian youngsters to pursue a career, which is in line with their aptitudes, interests and capabilities. Apart from this, the career counselling sessions have also revealed that there are many students who are not interested in pursuing academics and would rather get into vocational training and take up a relevant job.”

Accordingly, FUEL’s career guidance and skilling centers support the youth they enrol with training in vocational and technical skills, followed by job-placements or guidance on self-employment. On-the-job training (theory and practical) by Orion Edutech (the technical partner of FUEL), followed by assessment and certification by the Sector Skill Council and post-placement tracking make for the complete, robust package. Keeping in mind the profile of the youngsters that they are reaching out to, experts at FUEL have conceptualized psychometric tests designed to evaluate the numerical, verbal, mechanical, reasoning and spatial abilities of the students, followed by personalized career assessment reports which are provided to students with suggestions of suitable career choices that match their aptitude, personality and interests. Vocations in which training is provided include retail, health care, digital marketing, telecom and information technology. One-on-one counselling sessions with career counsellors and clinical psychologists are also provided to both students and parents where career reports and maps are discussed. Currently 1000 students are enrolled in the 4 centers while approximately 3900 students have passed out from them and have found themselves gainfully employed.

For instance, Aparna Ashok Khandagle, an undergraduate who belongs to an underprivileged family in Patna might never have known that she could work in a hospital and earn her own personal income. However, after counselling and support from FUEL, she today finds herself with a job as a General Duty Assistant in a hospital.

In addition, the Gyandaan Scholarship portal has been set up by FUEL with the purpose of linking donors to deserving beneficiaries (www.Gyandaan.org).  Not only does the portal connect scholars to donors, it takes responsibility for disbursing the funds to the scholars while tracking them and reporting on their progress.  Thus far FUEL has distributed 2 crore scholarships

So what’s next on the cards for this young, energetic organization which has been racing ahead since the word Go?  “We have had the great privilege of being part of Champions of Change event during which we had great opportunity to interact with the Hon’ble Prime Minister Shri Narendra Modi Ji and GES -2016 at Stanford University, hosted by former President Barack Obama and research Fellows of Cambridge University UK,“ says Deshpande. “We now as a delegation wish to present and work for 115 aspirational districts of India and replicate our successful model of counselling and skill development in all of them.” 

Impact-Story is a series on development and CSR interventions leading to some impacts on the ground. If you have a project, innovation or intervention that has changed the lives of a few people or a community, please share a brief note at csr@ngobox.org. Our Team will get back to you after validating the information for a detailed coverage.