HYDERABAD: Starbucks or Cafe Coffee Day? XUV or hatchback? Toni & Guy or local Santosh barber anna? What would you choose? The former, perhaps! But Chandra Sekhar Putchakayala chose the latter, with pleasure. For him, it’s always about finding his true calling, not a fancy income and the corner cabin. With a pay cut of 70 percent, he jumped from JP Morgan, a banking institute to social service sector, where he is just a call away for people (literally).
Chandra, a native of Vikarabad, is currently the CEO of Vidya HelpLine, a toll-free number for career counselling) project for six years now and president of Nirmaan Organisation, an NGO for three years now. With a major in MBA from BITS Pilani, he holds four plus years with JP Morgan in Mumbai before he could arrive officially into the social service sector.
It was during his childhood that he found warmth and solace in developmental activities. He was a part of Satya Sai Seva Samithi in his home town. It instilled the desire to work for the society.
These thoughts were fostered while studying at BITS and eventually became one of the initial members of Nirmaan Organisation, a not-for-profit organisation (NPO) that boasts of a strong presence today, with 130-full time staff, 700+ volunteers in seven states, serving 1,00,000 people annually and since then been associated with it, driving several projects in education and social leadership.
In the years to come, Chandra envisions to scale up Vidya HelpLine project across India providing career counselling to millions of students and also to start a chain of value based schools focusing on holistic development of the students. He took the first steps in that direction by initiating a play school named -FLY (Fun, Learning and You) on August 15, 2016. He is also awarded ‘BITSAA 30 under 30,’ given to alumni of BITS Pilani for his contributions in Social Entrepreneurship and community building category.
Chandra’s parents are government school teachers and he is married to Geetha, who worked in Nirmaan Vidya HelpLine project for four years before coming full time to FLY School.
“I had a successful career at JPM and a happy one too. However, there has been a constant longing to explore myself more and by doing something more concrete to the community in education space. I have initiated Nirmaan Mumbai chapter along with my friends and we have been working on weekends in government schools in Malad, but there has been a longing to do more,” he shares.
“Mayur Patnala, along with a few others, started Vidya HelpLine project and we got the opportunity to scale up the project across AP. Then in one of our tele conversations he talked about scaling this project and looking for potential people. I felt my longing has become more intense and we have an opportunity too here, I took the decision to come full time. Personally, it was not a very tough decision, but convincing my parents was,” he smiles.
Talking about Nirmaan, he says it’s a NGO started by the students of BITS Pilani in 2005 working in the areas of education, livelihoods and social leadership. “From the past 12 years, Nirmaan has had 2,08,000+ directbeneficiaries, 5,00,000+ indirect beneficiaries, with 100+ passionate full time employees and 700+ strong volunteer network,” he says.
He adds, “We have five flagship programmes and social innovations and 30+ projects targetting children, women, youth and farmers from diverse social backgrounds across eight States of India supported by CSRs of several companies such as IBM, Google, Microsoft, Wells Fargo, OCL India Ltd etc and governments of Telangana, Andhra Pradesh and Assam,” Chandra informs.
Vidya Helpline is one of the flagship projects of Nirmaan started in 2010 with a focus on career guidance to economically backward students and dropouts, especially from rural areas, enabling them to make effective educational and career choices.
“We operate a toll free helpline to provide career guidance to the students. Some of the questions include “What courses should I do after Class X to get early employment? What scholarships am I eligible for? As on June 30, 2017, Vidya HelpLine has helped 2,50,000+ students /dropouts through various interventions such as career guidance helpLine (4,50,000+ calls), career workshops (2,000+sessions), train the trainers etc, and has been operational in the states of Telangana, Andhra Pradesh, and Assam and recently started in Bangalore.
The project has received various awards from organisations such as Vodafone, NASSCOM Foundation, US Consulate etc, with a theme of solving social problems innovatively through mobiles and technology,” he educates us about the helpline.“I feel proud that my team is a collective entity and their commitment to the cause is tremendous,” he adds with satisfaction.
They receive about 1,000 calls of which they manage to answer half. “We don’t have resources to meet the rest. They have to 2,000+ schools from Andhra Pradesh, Telangana, Odisha and Karnataka for counselling,” he adds. Talking about his observations he has made so far, in terms of students and education scenario, Chandra says, “Interestingly, there is no pressure from parents in underprivileged communities to take up any particular course. However, most middle and upper middle class parents push their aspirations on students.
The quality of education is still basic. However, there are some inspiring students, who amidst all the adversities, come out with flying colours. If these can be identified and groomed, they could become change agents in the communities and uplift their entire families. We initiated a programme called ‘Career Saathi’ for such students.”