Inclusive Growth and Role of NIIT Foundation

Back in 2006, NIIT started a group called “Affirmative Action”.  The word originated from the perceived need of building skills in SC and ST students so that they can take up jobs in the organised sector, based on their merit rather than on reservation.  That was also a call of the Government and Corporates and was visible in manifestos released by organisations such as CII and FICCI.

Taking up the responsibility of driving Affirmative Action at NIIT, I started exploring what we could do in the area.  We began with very little clarity but a lot of passion on what we wanted to do.  We sought to distil out our target audience, our charter and our sustenance model.  NIIT has globally established competence in Education Delivery, Content Development and Technology for education and training for students across 40 countries worldwide. We decided to start by finding out how best our core competencies could be leveraged to impact larger India. 

This meant visiting rural India, talking to people already passionately engaged in similar development work and experimenting with ideas – old and new.  We found that everyone, without exception, was happy with the idea that NIIT would be doing something in the social space.  However, almost everyone had a different view of what should be done and how it should be done.  And that’s precisely what made defining NIIT Foundation that much more challenging and interesting.

The numbers were stark – less than 20% of India (primarily urban) was creating more than 80% of the GDP - and the facts were disturbing – rural to urban ratio had moved from 80:20 to 73:27 in the last 20 or so years. However, the population growth in urban areas was primarily in India’s slums!  The visits to our country’s interiors revealed that the ‘divides’ in their various forms were the real hindrances to India’s inclusive growth.  Casteism led to segregation of population in terms of access to amenities and gender bias led to differentiation in education for girls.  Financial and technical divides led to ignorance and inappropriate choices in education and, hence, frustration and downward spiral for the youth of India.

 Another interesting phenomena was that civil service organizations were at work almost everywhere we went, and some had been in existence for a long time in some of the areas.  However, the impact was not visible though each organization had great case studies.  These were lessons for us on scale, impact and sustainability of not-for-profit organizations.

Through the last five years of exploring, experimenting, running operations directly in slums and small towns as well as working with other non-profit organizations – I believe we are now more focused and clearer on what we want to do and how we are to do it.  We have a better picture about the scale of the operations and we have a direction for sustainability.  We are an enabling organization, building training content, enabling on-ground NGOs, giving wings to social efforts of other corporates, and providing means for individuals to contribute to social development meaningfully.  Our projects are now firmly in place and we hope to start reaping the benefits of scale of reach and impact in the very near future. 

This newsletter gives you a window into what we are doing and how we are doing it.  Through this newsletter, we hope to connect with more and more people and corporates and we are looking forward to views, critical inputs and support to take this mission forward.

Best wishes

Neeraj Agarwal

Won the UK India Skills Forum Award (UKISF) 2011!

NF has won the UK India Skills Forum (UKISF) Awards 2011 organized by the UK India Business Council and FICCI! We had applied in the category for "Best Private Sector Skills Provider (Graduates/School Drop Outs/Rural Communities)"

The award is a big morale booster for our teams that work so hard, creating the change we want to bring about in the skill development area. 

Thank you to all our supporters, staff,  volunteers and all our really great students! 

Musings of a new Center Head!

My first impression of the task ahead as drawn by the last Center Head meet was - "This is not going to be easy." Sustainability meant higher capacity utilization, which meant greater mobilization, which meant understanding community, getting visibility, counselling etc. while keeping the quality intact which in turn meant "Multitasking- infact Severe Multitasking". 

I am sure all the other center heads have already mastered the art of multi-tasking. I also braced myself up for it, got some ideas together and for headed Sangam Vihar, where in words of an autowallah, - "the rich and the poor are treated equally.. by the potholes & the traffic madam ji. All are like rockets, either waiting to take-off or to explode." I was convinced that NIIT Foundation could offer opportunities to some of these rockets and probably prevent some of the explosions! 

The conviction became even stronger, as I met the extremely passionate & extremely supportive team - both core team and center team. I don't know many organizations where people filled to the brim with their own work, will patiently help you in yours. And when you're new, this becomes critical in learning & understanding the process. The openness and flexibility to toy with new ideas is an another important thing found in abundance at NF. 

Looking back, the past month has been like a crash course in multiple things, a roller-coaster ride in itself and I'm planning to keep it that way!

Excuse me, I am an Introvert!

For the longest time I confused being an introvert with being shy.  I thought introverts avoided being around people and as a natural consequence were not necessarily good public speakers.  Being an extrovert I thought was a mandatory requirement for being successful in a public role.

Till one of my professors explained the difference between introverts and extroverts with a brilliant analogy.  As per him, we should look at introverts as people born with battery packs – that is where they derive their energy from.  When they wake up in the morning, their battery is fully charged and they are ready to face the new day and any challenge it might bring.  They can be good speakers or bad, shy or friendly – characteristics independent of an introvert nature.  As the day goes by, interactions with another people depletes their battery, till there is hardly any energy left after a long day of interactions.  When the battery is running low, an introvert must withdraw from public (even well meaning individuals) and wait for batteries to recharge.

An extrovert on the other hand can be looked at as a person with solar panels.  So when an extrovert wakes up, they open up their solar panels and eagerly look for people.  They need human interaction to get energy.  With every interaction, their energy increases so after a full day of interactions, they are raring to go!  Again, just because they get their energy from interactions with other people does not in any way guarantee that they are great speakers - so a myth broken.

As part of our company’s recruitment process, we evaluate an individual on many parameters including how the person reacts to people – introvert or extrovert.  This awareness is important. Because if we use our intrinsic nature as reasons for not doing certain things, they become stumbling blocks.  However, if we are aware and understand our intrinsic nature, it doesn’t need to become a constraint leaving us free to be as we choose.

Sapna Moudgil
NIIT Foundation

Me and Social Work

It was the fag end of my graduation. Everyone around me was going crazy with filling up multiple forms for assorted colleges, taking coaching classes for various competitive exams, undergoing counseling sessions. All wanted to get into the top business schools with just one focus in their mind which was to “earn money”. Amidst all this fervor and money being the sole motivating factor for most of the students, entering into the realm of professional social work was a tough decision. You could see eyebrows rising and people bombarding you with verbal arrows. Despite all the pressure around where people were reluctant to accept any opinion contradictory to their idea about social work I decided to pursue masters in Social Work.

Undergoing masters in social work has been an enriching experience. I received exposure to the stark realities of living in Delhi and the strength that various individuals displayed to withstand all these troubles with a smile on their face. Each opportunity to interact with people has been a learning experience and has had a tremendous impact on my thought process.

During this phase innumerable individuals have impacted my life. One such person has been Pritam. I came in touch with Pritam while I was interning with a school. As a social worker I had to shoulder the responsibility of engaging all the students into various community services and awareness generation programs. Hence I was in direct contact with all the school kids. While on one hand some students displayed special inclination towards the subject, others were a challenge to engage into the various activities. One student who was always there to carry out every task was Pritam. A shy and very polite grade XII student, Pritam carried out any responsibility levied on his shoulders with perfection. I was awed at the amount of dedication he displayed while carrying out the tasks for the community members especially for the youth. Due to this he had become a favorite amongst all the teachers, students and even the community. During the close interaction with grade XII I learnt that Pritam came from a very difficult educational and social background. Disinterested in studies he flunked in grade IX for four consecutive times after which he was expelled from the school. Being the team leader of the local gang in the community he was engaged in all kind of wrong activities such as gang fights. At that point of time using abusive language was a habit he was really proud about. He spent two years being out of the education system before coming in contact with a school run by an NGO. Through the motivation that he received from the NGO people he realized that he could lead a healthy life by transforming himself. Thus he assured his family that he will resume his studies again and joined the school. The alternative methodology of teaching accompanied by the high emphasis on self development paved a way for enhancing his skills and knowledge. Pritam realized the importance of education and thus set an aim in his life too. With constant touch with social workers he also channelized his efforts to work towards community betterment. Today Pritam has been instrumental in helping all the youth in his group to either join school or earn a living by working.

A student like Pritam taught me that where there is a will there is a way. It’s been 3 years that I have been associated with this field professionally. Such instances strengthened my determination to work with the people directly. The driver for work being –‘working with and for others’ helps me in overcoming a lot of dilemmas that I may confront in my daily life because I realized that my commitment towards this cause has brought about some change in an individual’s life.

Swati Kukreti

NIIT Foundation

Nature AND Nurture

This incident goes back to last summer when the Gharoli team and I were conducting home visits. In one of the nearby lanes we saw a group of children, between 5-7 years of age, chuckling in excitement. ‘What fun! How I wish I could join them!’ I thought to myself. However, soon after I heard a yelp, a loud painful one. Again and again! It grew faint, before it finally died out, in the din of the joyful voices of the children. A fearful voice within me screamed, ‘There’s something not right there, run!’ I rushed towards the children.

Around the children lay 6 puppies, maybe I should say 4 dead and 2 struggling to survive. On asking I realized that the children thought the pups were toys and twisting necks of the vulnerable, the voiceless was an exciting activity. I was filled with anger against those children and wanted to actually whack them. Whoever said we were all born kind, like angels and gradually the environment shaped and labeled us as good or bad. In a flash of a second I junked the nature vs. nurture theory. Something was constantly buzzing in my head. No! There were human voices somewhere in the background, saying something that didn’t make sense and just like you snap out of a trance- I broke out of my dark thoughts. A few parents of those children had gathered around me and were complaining how their children didn’t listen to them and look at what they had now done! To ensure that the ‘powerful’ continue to dominate over the weak the parents slapped their children a couple of times and sent them home. A while back, when all the ‘fun’ was happening, the same parents were looking on, basking in the sun, while the pups silently passed away into eternal bliss. All this when I thought the four legged were the animals! In a few minutes I saw who the ‘real, scary, wild’ animal inside each one of us standing there. It seemed like eternity, but all this happened in a flash. I had to save the remaining two pups and I shifted my focus towards that.

Is there heaven on Earth? Yes, we soon discovered that our own center was and the CDC students were the real angels, who I thought didn’t exist anymore. Two boys immediately took charge; they knew a vet close by and decided to take the pups there. They left on a bike leaving behind a cloud of dust, but it cleared soon after, or maybe my mind did! Nature vs. nurture! Maybe a better way of putting it would be nature and nurture! I realized that yes! Each one of us indeed had an animal and a human side to ourselves and the environment just externalized that, for us to see, to know and to change. We are beautiful from within us and nothing will stop us from bringing that forth. Although we couldn’t save the lives of the pups, something in me became alive; I know hope did- to see the compassion in the two youth, I knew that not all is lost. I will always be grateful to them for this life changing experience and for reviving hope in each one of us who were part of this incident.

Tulika Mehra

NIIT Foundation

Social Work the most difficult ‘easiest’ option

I recently got infuriated when I heard someone say that “social work toh koi bhi kar sakta hai”. After having done my MSW (that’s Masters in Social Work folks!) the one thing I understood above everything else was “social work sabke bas ki baat nahi hai”. Yep! I was offended. Not only because I am a social worker  but because it’s not just this one person, it is a disease of general notion that needs healing! From “kachra saaf kar… tu toh social worker hai” to “tum zyada paise kaise maang sakte ho tum toh social worker ho” we have heard it all. So I am going to really roll up my sleeves here and try some “Kachra Safai”, where it really needs to be done!

Social work course is wrongly thought to be the easiest option for those not interested in studies or those who want to do a “not so serious” Masters. Why? - is the question. If anyone can do social work then why doesn’t everybody come forward to do what we do? Why do people hesitate in stepping into a dirty slum? Why are people clueless when it comes to interacting politely with fellow human beings who may not be matching up to their “class”?  Why do people not want to work on lower salaries?

Above four lines already state some things that most people cannot handle in a lifetime. Let’s face it – ‘calm and quiet in an air-conditioned office’, ‘a cabin with a lot of office space’, ‘a couch to work on’ - is not what a real social worker aspires for, what he/she really aspires for makes no sense to those who really ARE looking for making their lives easier!

Social workers are needed in every field be it children, families, youth, elderly, women, health, disability or even research and writing! And all that is more recognized in developed countries, where development is not the real issue but people and society are – a little hint as to where a social worker studies to do ‘Kachra Safai’!

Rest of the economy is either waking up to the need for similar ‘Kachra Safai’ or is being forced into it by Govt. or pursuing it diligently to impress the likes of Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation – They call it by a different name – Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR)! The corporate trend to give back to society has caused a paradigm shift from charity to profession; there is a new sector on the block -social development sector.

Now let us examine whether a social worker is industrious enough to be counted alongside the ‘Serious’ Masters like Economics, Engineering or MBA.

Sustainability is as much an issue in an NGO as it is in any business set up, so a social worker faces no lesser financial responsibility than a corporate employee.  In fact social work is the only profession that has rich resource pool of all kinds of skills – sales, financial management, HR. A social worker needs people skills, good psychological skills because they look after everything from ‘growing  a team of people’ to ‘growing an entire community’ all in a day’s work!

Maybe then my answer could be “social workers are magicians jo sab kuch kar sakte hai”. And that I feel proud about being a magician who can do it all. From having worked with differently-abled kids, to HIV prone sex workers, to domestic violence victims to now working for the education of the underprivileged youth and children I do see myself as a magician.

On second thought, I should now thank the person who made me realize I am one who can do everything. I did not have a specialization in my course may be because we social workers are special enough to do it all.

Cheers then to us…..the Social Workers “jo sab kuch kar sakta hai” :-)

Jocelyn Jose

NIIT Foundation