Karta Initiative India Foundation

Our #4th story on how Karta Scholar program is unique and has an ecosystem based, end-to end and holistic approach to support marginalized youth We focus on career-readiness - we support #KartaScholars to do internships during academic breaks so that they get workplace exposure opportunities. You would love to hear from one of the Karta scholars Neha Shelar regarding her internship and her journey till now :) Special thanks to Prof. Vijayan Immanuel and Vindya Kushal !! -------------------------------------------------------------------- Growing up in a small village in Maharashtra, I never imagined I would be where I am today. In my community, higher education for girls was just a distant dream. The norm was for girls to be married right after completing class 12, and the idea of studying further often faced strong resistance. However, deep down, I wanted more for myself. I wanted the chance to continue my education and break free from the limiting expectations around me. With this determination, I made the bold decision to leave home and pursue academic excellence at Jawahar Navodaya Vidyalaya, Palghar even when my parents didn’t agree to it. As I navigated through my teenage years, the question of what to do after class 12 weighed heavily on my mind. The options were limited, and I often wondered if I would even get the chance to study further. During this challenging time, Karta Initiative India Foundation entered my life, becoming my guiding light and major savior. Karta team provided me with invaluable career guidance and support throughout the university application process. With their help, I became the first girl from my community to pursue higher education, breaking barriers that had held back generations before me. Today, I am proudly studying Psychology (Hons) at Vidyashilp University in Bangalore. This summer, I am interning at Karta Initiative India Foundation, where I am conducting primary research to understand and document the various challenges faced by marginalized youth in rural areas to get University education, under the guidance of Aparna Choudhary and my University Program Head, Setu Havanur. The idea is to build nuances in Karta's Access program to address these challenges. My journey has taught me that no matter where you come from, your dreams are valid, and your potential is limitless. Education is the key to unlocking a world of opportunities, and with the right support and guidance, anything is possible. Going Forward, I would like to build a career on the intersection of Psychology and AI. I want to inspire the girls of my community to dream big and help them achieve their dreams. ---------------------------------------------------------------- Please watch this space for many more such stories :) #youth #equity #marginalization #futureofwork PanIIT Alumni Foundation PANIIT USA Tata Trusts Shashank Malik Sohini Bhattacharya Shaheen Mistri Safeena Husain Nandita Sinha Naina Subberwal Batra Anchal

Wishing you Happy Diwali! Hope we could build an equitable and prosperous future for everyone! P.S.: The picture depicts Dev Diwali celebrated in Banaras every year after Diwali, on Kartik Poornima - all the ghats are lit with diyas :)

Our team has been travelling to remote parts of the country to engage with the rural and marginalized youth as a part of our "Access program". You would love to have a few glimpses of our work along with beautiful countryside. Sharing pictures of our work in the wider Jammu region - Udhampur, Doda, Rajouri and Jammu Academic support for comprehension, analytical skills and subject specific needs is provided through live online sessions. Our in-person engagement with youth involves mentorship, career guidance and counselling sessions in groups and critical thinking. During these in-person sessions, our team engages with young people in a one-on-one basis as well. The idea is to generate hope and aspiration and get the marginalized youth out of the vicious cycle of "we can only get there till a certain point". Further, we keep on engaging and counselling parents. There are pressures of early marriage and immediate income. It takes consistent counselling and trust-building with the parents and families to ensure that the young people in the rural areas get into universities and continue their undergraduate studies for the next 4 years. For us, this is a continuous cycle that goes on. Now, our senior scholars have started talking to their own communities and community leaders in their villages about the hope and aspirations of youth, importance of university education and the ecosystem based scaffolding support provided by us. We hope to grow the community of marginalized youth, who have twinkle in their eyes and the spirit of can-do attitude :) Enjoy the pictures of Jammu region for now :) Please watch this space - we will be posting pictures of Jharkhand, Bihar, Maharashtra and Karnataka in the next few weeks :) #marginalization #youth #hope #opportunities #equity

Shat shat naman to our father of nation Mahatma Gandhi! On this occasion of Gandhi Jayanti, we would like to share the reflections of our Scholar Tithibrata pal studying at Ashoka University - --------------------------------------------------------------------- Today as we celebrate Gandhi Jayanti, I am reflecting on the values of Mahatma Gandhi and how do they continue to resonate deeply with our education system and personal lives. Gandhi's principles are relevant today and can help create a more peaceful, sustainable, and harmonious world. Mahatma Gandhi believed in the power of education, not just for academic success, but as a pathway to human flourishing. Our education systems can make a big difference in making societies peaceful and long-lasting by living up to Gandhi's ideas. Schools and universities are not just institutions for academic growth but spaces where students’ social and emotional capabilities should be nurtured to create compassionate, empathetic citizens. As a proud Karta Scholar, I resonate deeply with Gandhian values. Karta is built on principles of equality, fraternity, secularism, integrity, and service - mirroring Gandhiji's values. I’m part of a diverse community of youth in Karta - from across the country. Though we come from many backgrounds, castes, communities, languages, and religions, we are united by a common goal of being the changemakers. This sense of fraternity is deeply rooted in Gandhian values - bringing people together beyond differences, and working towards the common good. I’ve built friendships with peers from places I had never been to and learned about cultures and perspectives hadn’t encountered before. I have experienced youth in Karta coming together from different corners of the country creating a powerful network of support, solidarity, understanding, and shared growth. In my journey at Karta, I've learnt that everyone has the right to education and must be open to everyone. As a young girl pursuing quality higher education, I believe if I can do it, so can others. This belief drives my work with Mahila Jan Samity - Ajmer, where I support young girls in Rajasthan, helping them get into colleges, delaying their marriages, and empowering them to take control of their future. I’ve conducted workshops and am mentoring girls there. I am going to support them with university applications, and aim to continue this work, ensuring more girls have the opportunity to succeed. We are walking on the path that Gandhi laid for us - building a world where education fosters not just intellect, but kindness, compassion, self-reliance, and moral integrity.   I’m proud to be an Indian and grateful to be born in the same land as Gandhi. As a former student of Jawahar Navodaya Vidyalaya, and now with the support of Karta, I see the impact of value-based education every day. Together, we can ensure education becomes the foundation for peace and prosperity, as Gandhi envisioned.

We are looking for committed individuals who believe in equity and would like to work hard towards building an equitable world, who understand that empathy is not enough and one has to have the grit, conviction and hard working attitude to turn empathy into action, who are compassionate, who believe in a meaningful and dignified future for marginalized youth and who can enable changemakers and leaders. What we are looking for: 1) Preferable experience: 8-20 years 2) Education qualification : STEM, Liberal Arts, Law, Design, Management 3) Compassion as a major value system 4) Lateral and non-linear thinking along with execution 5) Both a dreamer and a doer 6) Institution builder and be "completely hands-on" 7) Open for extensive travel to remote locations 8) Delhi/NCR based people or who are willing to relocate In case you want to be a part of this team on a full time basis and have an outlook of the next 5 years to commit to the organization, please feel free to reach out to me. My email ID is : aparna.choudhary@karta-initiative.org #jobs #recruitments

We are excited to share that we recently conducted a workshop at Sambhaavanaa Institute, Himachal Pradesh, with our scholars studying at Delhi University Ashoka University BML Munjal University and Shoolini University We conducted different exercises through group activities to discuss the challenges that Karta scholars face. The idea was to understand how do we solve real life problems; when do we discuss with the group leaders and mentors; how do our minds play with us many times exaggerating the problems making them appear much bigger than they actually are; how are our lives are so similar in terms of the challenges that we face, though there is some uniqueness in our individual lives but they are quite limited; how do we again and again exaggerate the uniqueness over similarities; how do we get stuck with "main character syndrome" as we feel that we are the only main characters and the most important ones while rest others are just side players. Its very important that we should never treat people as a mere means to our own ends in our lives to build real, solid and lifelong relationships based on mutual trust, love and care. We also enacted a few plays with groups of scholars who played roles of family members coming from various socio-economic backgrounds - landless farm labor, small and marginal farmers, important events happening in the family - wedding, death and life threatening illness : how does one make decision to continue studies and do internships At an overall level, we discussed: 1) Importance of mentorship 2) Peer to peer learning 3) Sense of collective 4) Importance of workplace exposure and acquire necessary skills to be work ready through internships during the university years 5) the similarities amongst the cohort of Karta scholars- lack of privileges, confidence, mental stamina pressure of immediate income 6) how to set our goals and make action plan to achieve them while not to get stuck in the "main character symdrome" 7) to build life long relationships based on mutual trust 8) Observing and understanding our own minds when we face any challenge You would love to have a glimpse of a few pictures of our workshop :) We will be conducting similar workshops in Ahmedabad, Pune and Bhopal with our scholars studying these cities in the coming months. Please watch out this space for more lovely pictures and videos :) #youth #equity #opportunities

It was an absolute to honour to have an amazing conversation with the Union Minister of State for Skill Development and Entrepreneurship, Shri Jayant Chaudhary in JNV Palghar along with our scholars who are studying in various universities abroad including University of Toronto The University of Edinburgh, Queen's University a few days back!! We discussed the end to end holistic and ecosystem based program model of Karta Initiative India Foundation to enable marginalized youth to be workplace ready and be active Global citizens - and the support is for 5-8 years. We look forward to have a long term engagement with the Ministry of Skill Development and Entrepreneurship!! #youth #futureofwork #dignity #equity

We are excited to share that we recently conducted our scholars' workshop at Azim Premji University - an integral part of Karta Mentorship :) Special thanks to Rajagopal CV for providing us with the space for this workshop!! We shared, debated, discussed and reflected upon responsible consumption of Media and information and how make sense of reality in post-truth world with critical thinking; how it's important to be not swayed by random information that we are inundated with on a daily basis; how do we focus on what's important. Anish Mukherjee facilitated these intense sessions. You can see the curiosity and energy in the pictures :) Further, we discussed about the importance of collective, friendships beyond one's own comfort zones (region, language, caste, religion, gender, food preferences, class) and fraternity. Anjor Bhaskar and Sushant Kumar facilitated an awesome workshop on how fraternity as a concept got incorporated into our Indian constitution; how fraternity is very important to be inculcated and practised in the current times in our country and globally, given the spread of hate and polarization; how do we live together cheerfully even when we strong differences of opinions and vastly differing world views. Have a glimpse of some of key moments of this workshop :) We will be conducting such workshops in various cities and universities - please watch this space for more of such workshops :) #youth #equity #opportunities #qualityhighereducation #mentorship #fraternity #marginalization Tata Trusts Jyotsna K Amrita Patwardhan Faustina (Freiter) Sharma

Wishing everyone Happy Teachers' Day!! On the occasion of Teachers' day, we salute Savitribai Phule, one of the first women teachers in modern India - who dedicated her life for the education of girls, women and marginalized sections of Indian society. Hope there is equitable access to education for all the girls, women and marginalized youth in near future!! #teachersday #education #equity

It was an absolute to honour to have an amazing conversation with the Union Minister of State for Skill Development and Entrepreneurship, Shri Jayant Chaudhary in JNV Palghar along with our scholars who are studying in various universities abroad including University of Toronto The University of Edinburgh, Queen's University a few days back!! We discussed the end to end holistic and ecosystem based program model of Karta Initiative India Foundation to enable marginalized youth to be workplace ready and be active Global citizens - and the support is for 5-8 years. We look forward to have a long term engagement with the Ministry of Skill Development and Entrepreneurship!! #youth #futureofwork #dignity #equity