When you light a lamp, the lamp leads you from darkness to light, from despair to hope, from ignorance to knowledge. This lamp lights thousand other lamps.

Since its inception in 1994, Foundation For Excellence, (FFE) has helped in excess of 18,500 students in India by awarding merit scholarships and transforming their lives.

Meet Vaibhavi, a FFE scholar. Vaibhavi was too young to remember her father who deserted his wife and two children. “My mother always says that I am a beautiful gift from god”, reminiscences Vaibhavi. Suman, her mother strived to provide her children with necessities as well as comfort. Her brother started working at a young age to keep the family income stable. Observing her mother and brother’s struggles, and realizing the paucity of funds, the young girl became a mature, sensible, and self-reliant young woman. She started tutoring children when she was in grade 5 and soon optimized her strengths. In grade 8, “I had a student whose mother was a dance teacher. I taught her and her mother allowed me to join her dance class in place of tuition fees. I learnt Kathak from her. Slowly, I started to assist her and the earning from these dance classes also helped me.”

Vaibhavi scored 84.4% in her PUC examinations; however, her financial condition stymied her studies for a year. The following year she appeared for the JEE (Mains) exams, earned a rank of 3,708, and made her way to the Jabalpur Engineering College in Electrical Engineering. Vaibhavi paid her semester fees entirely with her own savings!

‘Fortune favors the brave.’ A professor at her college asked her to apply for the scholarship from FFE. On being asked how she would have managed to continue her education had she not received the scholarship, she confidently says, “I would have continued giving tuitions and managed to pay my fees.” Vaibhavi plans to attempt the GATE exam after completing her engineering program. She wants to work at a PSU or pursue higher studies at IIT. A decade later, she sees herself as an academic professional teaching in college as well as supporting students financially.

FFE seeks to identify, nurture, and encourage gifted students like Vaibhavi pursue their dreams of professional education in Engineering/Technology (B.E/B.Tech) or Medicine (MBBS) in India. Today, FFE, also augments the scholarship with skills training from Year 2-4 of Engineering, enabling students to acquire skills needed for employment. This combination of financial assistance with skills training has enabled students to gain professional employment, earn higher incomes and lift their families out of poverty in a single generation.

As Dr. Sudha Kidao, the Managing Trustee of FFE encapsulates, “Such students have the determination, grit and ambition to succeed despite odds. Investment in such individuals through financial assistance (scholarships) and additional skills training and mentoring not only changes their future in a short span of 4 years when they become employed but changes the trajectory of their families as well. FFE’s alumni today contribute to their families, community and to FFE- being truly responsible citizens and role models for others to emulate.”

Students apply for the scholarship online. Additionally, a network of 500 volunteer “facilitators” identifies the deserving students; they verify the genuineness of their need, and act as mentors once the scholarship is awarded, ensuring that only genuine deserving students are awarded scholarships

Scholarships are renewed annually based on continued academic excellence and financial need.

^{FFE’s Growth in Scholarship Numbers and Amounts Annually}

With the belief of alumni being the future of the organization, FFE has a unique self-sustainable model, ‘Circle of Giving’.  Every scholar undertakes a pledge to support at least 2 scholars in their lifetime through a contribution to the foundation. FFE’s alumni are today engaged with FFE as donors both individually and through their corporates, through their professional and personal networks, as volunteers in the role of facilitators and mentors, and as the biggest brand ambassadors of a very successful program. The last two financial years has seen a contribution of Rs.53 lakhs by the FFE alumni each year!

FFE Alumnus and generous donor, Vinayak Hedge is an exemplar of the ‘Circle of Giving.’ A humble family with father-a farmer and mother-a home-maker, three older sisters who were living at a relative to gain education due to lack of schools in Bisalkoppa, Sirsi in Uttara Kannada district, Karnataka; Vinayak was lucky enough to go to a newly established primary school as a part of first batch of students. Moving to JawaharNavodayaVidyalaya for further education, he aspired to become an Engineer. Sri Ramakrishna Students’ Home that provides subsidized boarding and meals to bright students studying in Bangalore acted as a catalyst, introducing him to FFE through the other fellow FFE scholars and hence, commenced a life-long association between Vinayak and FFE. 

Vinayak helped FFE to facilitate a meeting with Tymtix Technologies Solutions, where he has been working as a software developer for more than four years, leading to a donation by Tymtix towards FFE’s Scholarship Program. His advice to the scholars, “Don’t stop dreaming in any situation. Put constant efforts to achieve your aspirations. When we look back, it’s mostly the efforts that we did not make, that we regret.”

Direct meetings of the stakeholders: scholars, donors, facilitators, alumni, and FFE team through ‘Open House’ events keeps the momentum of giving and igniting. Corporate partnerships, donor access to the sponsored beneficiaries, mentorship for employability, as well as sowing the seeds of professionalism and networking while in college through social media is unique to FFE. Project Monitoring includes a half yearly and an annual report to the donor or the organization and scholarship disbursement details of the sponsored students.

The message from Dr. SudhaKidao, the Managing Trustee, FFE, depicts the emotions of the FFE,“Today, FFE India Trust is handling more scholarship awardees, new applications and programs than ever before and is poised to scale to expand our impact. I urge you to join us on this exciting journey of transforming bright young lives and enabling them to pursue their dreams”.

With a presence in 26 states of India, and a scholarship amount of about Rs. 115 Crores disbursed over 24 years, FFE is considered one of the largest scholarship granting organizations in India in higher education with a pan-India presence. FFE ended FY 2017-18, awarding scholarships to 1144 first time scholars and to 3,802 renewal students amounting to Rs.20.7 Crores in scholarships alone. In a nation where higher education is still a privilege with Gross Enrollment Ratio (GER) being 24.50%, the scholars and the alumni of FFE have created an innovative ‘circle of giving’ giving hopes to thousands of young lamps readying to be lit and ignited.

This initiative has recently won NGOBOX-Dalmia Bharat 5th CSR Impact Award in Project of the year category.

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