At a time when students fight for seats in prestigious colleges and subsequent fat pay packages, a group of young men involved themselves in a seemingly selfless service.
What started as a casual discussion among a group of 12 friends from Centre For Management Studies at Jain University, Bangalore, during a road trip four years ago, has now turned out to be a renowned youth organisation called Yuva-Ignited Minds. Yuva has come a longway and grown to a group of 500 people from its initial 12, when it started in Feb 2008. Having gained wide popularity, Yuva now operates in nearly 20 colleges and schools with 5,000 members. Its co-founder and president, Manish Sankla was also chosen as one of the Top 100 Inspiring Young Social Entrepreneurs, by Foundation for Youth Social Entrepreneurship.
The managing committee comprises Mayank Solanki, Nitesh Bagrecha and Manish Sankla. They have got many development projects under their collar like recycling newspapers, clothes collection drive, puppy adoption drives and planting saplings around Lalbagh. They manage one activity every week.
These young guns were just into their second-year BBM when they came up with the idea.
Their first project was an eye check-up camp where, “children as young as six, who had difficulty in seeing, attended the camp. It was a heart-wrenching sight for all of us,” reminisces Solanki. Bagrecha points out that a positive attitude and need for achievement is what it takes to run an organisation such as Yuva.
On the future of Yuva, Bagrecha says, “We’re focusing on making it big in the next two years, with active involvement in more schools and colleges.” More on:
www.yuvaignitedminds.com .