The figures speak for themselves: since 1994, over 30,000 scholarships worth Rs 35 crore have been awarded to students in 25 states in India. In Tamil Nadu alone, scholarships worth `9.45 crore were given to 3,201 brilliant and financially needy scholars aspiring for professional degrees in engineering and medicine.
On Sunday, the Vivekananda Auditorium at Anna University brimmed with young scholars, alumni, donors, facilitators and volunteers. It was an ‘Open House’ session of the Foundation for Excellence (FFE).
The FFE Mission: to bring about a transformation in the lives of academically bright and under-privileged students in India. This is by enabling them to complete their higher education by providing scholarships in engineering, technology and medicine.
Set up in 1994 by industrialist, investor and IIT-Kanpur alumni Prabhakar Goel, FFE is a non-government organisation based in the United States, while its Indian chapter, Foundation for Excellence India Trust (FFEIT), is a charitable trust based in Bangalore.
Explaining the trust motto and the scholarship selection process, Sudha Kidao said: “Our goal is to help bright students from economically challenged backgrounds, who want to pursue higher education.” She added, “The family’s income must be less than Rs 10,000 per month.”
Pointing out that Tamil Nadu topped the list of receipients of scholarships — girls outnumbering boys, Kidao said FFE volunteers in the US coordinated with the 750-odd active facilitators in India to identify deserving students across the country. “An engineering scholar receives Rs 30,000 per year, while a medico, Rs 25,000.
When you donate to FFE, you know that your contribution goes directly to the scholarship as it is a higly focused, efficient, transparent and low-cost organisation.” Interestingly, most of the donors are scholars and the “circle of giving” is constantly expanding. What has made this possible is the pledge taken by the scholars that they would support two students once they achieve economic self-sufficiency. “This is an in-built mechanism to sustain the programme,” according to Kidao. “There are 1,000 alumni registered with the FFE Scholars Association.”
Take for instance N Balaji (28). He completed his plus two and civil engineering as an FFE scholar. For the last seven years, an employee of Cognizant Technology Solutions, he contributes regularly to the scholarships.
Quoting Vivekananda’ words that ‘Education is manifestation of perfection in mankind,’ he said that being part of the FFE family “helps in providing education to the poor but bright students of the nation.”
Echoing him was 79-year-old V Raghavan.
A retired IIT professor of metallurgy and material science, he proudly pores over the outstanding grades of L Ramya (19), a MIT electronic communication student he has been supporting for the last two years. For Ramya, pursuing an engineering course seemed to be a far-off dream as her father S Loganathan was a construction labourer.
With a score of 1,173 in her plus two and a centum in Math, she approached an FFE facilitator, who helped her get the scholarship. She wants to pursue an MS degree and also dreams of a job in a “core company”. Narrating her story, R Bhargavi, a second year MBBS student at KMC,
said: “My passion was to become a doctor, but the hardships faced by our family proved to be an impediment.”
Bhargavi got to know of the FFE scholarships and soon her good scores helped her in bagging it. “The FFE scholarships are an example of how good deeds can happen and multiply,” said S Viji, managing director, Brakes India Ltd. He said he was impressed with the model of the trust and the channeling of the entire collected funds to the scholarships.
FFE founder Prabhakar Goel said his goal was to empower those who were bright-minded with financial constraints.