Inspire youth into social action

BANGALORE: They’re young, feisty and have experienced life on the other side of the greener pasture. They’ve gone to the grass roots in the country and have seen how the underprivileged live and run their homes on a meagre Rs 400 a month. From water shortage in a village and the eagerness of a boy to learn computers to the debate on the requirements of scientific advancements in small towns — people working at Grassroutes have seen it all, it seems.

A Bangalore-based organisation, Grassroutes runs a programme that partially funds 18-25-year-old youngsters to travel and experience rural India through road trips. They can only spend Rs 100 a day.

It began thus

“We believe that each individual’s action is influenced by certain personal experiences, which make sure you don’t drop out of school or college and you keep at it until you create the change. It’s an experience-driven action,” smiles Keerthi Kiran, the 24-year-old co-founder of Grassroutes. “My seniors and I from BITS-Pilani had visited a few villages in and around Pilani a few times between 2006-2008. There, I learned and understood my own role as a change agent,” says Kiran.

They worked with a self-help group (SHG) and taught them ways to increase their livelihood. “We taught them how to make paper bags that are sold and used at our supermarket and other shops,” he says. Kiran also visited all the Industrial Training Institutes to study and analyse the vocational courses they offer. “Whether it was talking to school teachers in Garinda, Rajasthan, about the NREGA implementation, the warmth and confidence of the women in various SHGs or the aspirations of youngsters for a better future — these are some of the instances that helped me understand what I expected from myself and the change I wanted to work towards,” he adds.

Kiran is ably assisted by a team of professionals who are also his friends from BITS — Saudi-based Abhilash Ravishankar and V Sriram, US-based Shravya Reddy and Bangalore-based Goutam Ullas work from different parts of the globe. They’re all planning to take the fellowship programme to another level.

The programme began with just three teams and had limited resources. Today, it works with more than 10 organisations around the country, receives around 900 applications each year from which 40 are selected from 12 different states.

The stories generated from the programme reaches more than thousands of people. “Last year’s project had 15 candidates travelling to Ranikhet (Uttaranchal), Purushwadi (Maharashtra), Arangottukara (Kerala), tribal areas in and around Vishakapatnam and studying topics like malnutrition and women empowerment,” says Kiran.

So how does Grassroutes choose the village or the issues? “We select most of our partners through recommendations and our own outreach efforts. We select them based on credibility, inspirational leadership and projects they have for the candidates,” he says. Currently, Grassroutes has partnered with 23 NGOs across the country.

Meet the team

The team in Bangalore consists of Sonali Gupta, programme director, Sri Ranganathan, programme manager, and Rishabh Kaul, manager outreach and partnership.

“I joined Grassroutes as I realised the potential in the idea of creating a society where youth are firmly grounded and are sensitised to the realities in their nation,” says Kaul. “I had time on my hands and wanted to be more involved with the project than be a mere well-wisher.” Kaul joined Grassroutes while studying in BITS, where he met Kiran who was his senior.

Kaul says that youngsters from any field can enrol into the programme. “During the trip, they talk to villagers and see the problems they face, give solutions (if any) and suggestions to implement and better their way of life. And based on all this, everyone generates content. For instance, at the end of the trip, each candidate has come up with a fixed number of photo essays, video interviews and stories. The written works are mostly based on ground reporting,” he explains. These stories will finally be disseminated to a wider audience through syndicates like The Alternative, The Weekend Leader and Mutiny Media.

After graduating in BBM from the Jain College-Center for Management Studies in 2009, 22-year-old Ranganathan, began his own retail sales training firm after interning at a few places. But a year later, he wasn’t able to cope with the financial burden. “I realised that the corporate sector was not for me. I spent a couple of months exploring options and reading about the social sector. I volunteered for a micro-credit organisation called RangDe where I learned about Grassroutes. The idea of a road trip absolutely excited me. I applied for the programme, got through it and it changed my life,” he explains.

Ranganathan joined Grassroutes seven months ago and his work involves meeting NGOs around the country and getting them to be a ‘host NGO’ for Grassroutes interns. “We initiate young people into development organisations based on requirements and demands by NGOs,” he explains.

Gupta, 23 years old, has been working full-time for Grassroutes since December 2008. Before that, this commerce graduate from Christ University, Bangalore, volunteered with the organisation for a year-and-a-half. “I’ve been at Grassroutes since its initial days and it’s very close to me. Getting youth engaged in social action will always be a cause that I’m very passionate about,” she says. As the programme director, Gupta oversees the planning, development and implementation of different aspects of the programme.

Learning from Grassroutes

Kaul did the programme in 2008  and says he understood the difficulty in bridging the gap between development and conservation. “I travelled to the Nilgiri belt visiting places like Ooty, Gudalur and other tiny villages along the way. In our trip, there were two separate issues — construction of a neutrino observatory and the elephant corridor,” he says. “The latter was about the tribals, who were living in the ‘core zone’ of the forest. They had to vacate so that the animals weren’t disturbed. Though they were allotted land about 30km away from the core zone, they never got it. The government officials, instead of helping them, offered them Rs 10 lakh each and told them to forget about the land.”

Kaul also met scientists who wanted to build a one-of-a-kind observatory which would propel India into an elite group of nations that have neutrino labs. “This would have helped us answer some questions about the origin of the world. But the project was put on hold for the simple reason that it would most likely destroy the elephant corridor of the Mudumalai region,” he says.

When he spoke to some of the school teachers, they expressed concerns of being trampled by elephants. “Though the corridor needs to be preserved, it was also important to safeguard the lives and livelihoods of people who are being threatened by the elephants. Lack of electricity was another problem,” he adds.

Ranganathan, while taking part in his programme last year, realised that the reasons why villages in Kerala are one of the most developed in India. “It wasn’t just the infrastructure, water facilities, electricity, etc, which were all provided for. It was a community that worked and grew up together by looking after each other,” he says.

Ranganathan was mapped to the Vayali Folklore Group, an NGO based in Arangottukkara, Kerala. Vayali is preserving and promoting the traditional folk art forms of Kerala. It helps local artisans sell their traditional handicrafts to urban buyers. It has also formed a community-owned folk troupe that has performed at various places across India.

“I had chosen a rural marketing project which required me to meet artisans, study the products they made, catalogue them online and contact suitable buyers,” he explains. “I also travelled with the troupe for a month. This helped me bond with the community that comprised daily wage workers, carpenters etc. I had several interactions with the community and observed their way of life. It was fascinating.”

This experience inspired Ranganathan to travel across the country to study village systems and the role of communities. “It was through the fellowship that I started to understand the things it takes to build and run a programme like this. When I came back from the trip, I met Kiran and expressed my interest to work at Grassroutes. At that point, I was hooked to the idea of travelling and meeting different communities and learning about all the work that was being done in the rural sector. That’s what I’m doing now,” he says.

Future plans

“We would like to make this whole experience open source — this means that we would like to help people all over the world to design their own Grassroutes, wherever they are. Everyone should be socially aware and be a change-maker in their own right,” says Kaul.

Gupta concurs and adds, “On a global level, we want people from different countries to run the Grassroutes programme to sensitise people in their respective countries. We plan to start working with different groups of people (not just the youth) to make them aware of Grassroutes”.

                                                                      — tasneem@expressbuzz.com