The Hindu Business Line : A place in the real world

Management minds at work, not at corporate desks, but in solving a farmer's woes, charting nutritious diets or organising domestic helpers. A social initiative targeted at young professionals.

It's that time of the year when young management students seek internships or job opportunities in top companies; most prefer multi-national companies that offer exorbitant salaries and a fantastic exposure. But in Hyderabad, seven MBA students (from Loyola College) are ready with their entrepreneurial ideas for a more diverse audience — social workers, educationists, corporate executives, alternative health therapists and businesspersons.

Their ideas are not exactly money-spinners, but aim to hit the bottomline in a different, and equally important way — by enhancing social capital. Entrepreneurship, for these students, is all about finding innovative and financially viable means to make social initiatives work, without depending on outside funding.

One of these "student volunteer consultants", Uday Kiran, talks about his plan to increase employee performance and commitment in a company that contracts housekeeping services. The women employees, all daily wage earners, sweep the common areas of residential and business complexes. Kiran suggests ways to make the women feel a sense of ownership in the company, and to provide "add-on" benefits like health education and literacy training.

Vijay Bhasker Reddy, another MBA student, outlines his idea to provide alternative livelihoods to aquaculture farmers in an impoverished coastal tract of Andhra Pradesh. His idea is to encourage farmers to grow herbs and flowering plants that have medicinal value. Based on his groundwork companies are even willing to provide seeds free of cost and to enter into a buy-back agreement with the farmers.

Krishna Sai, who has completed her degree but is searching for a "meaningful" job, describes her plan to set up a documentation system for a yoga therapy centre, while Raji Nair and Abhishek describe how they planned a public awareness campaign for an environmental NGO.

These young people are part of a programme run by the Centre for Social Initiative and Management (CSIM) in Hyderabad that aims to "plant the seed of social consciousness" in college students and young professionals. Bhuvaneswari Ravi manages the Centre with a team of women who believe that "change is possible".

Set up in 2002 through an independent trust, the Manava Seva Dharma Samasthan, the centre is supported in Hyderabad by Dr Reddy's Laboratories, among others. Initially it supported organisations in the social sector "in areas like fundraising, documentation, awareness creation, for which they couldn't afford to hire professionals," explains Bhuvaneswari. "So we brought in management students, who would have the ideas and the energy to find solutions."

Initially the going was tougher than expected. "We found the students really didn't have the skills to provide solutions to the NGOs," says Bhuvaneswari. "But we discovered that this exposure to the `real world' was in itself an extremely valuable experience for the students."

In placing business students in a context most of them had never considered as a work option, CSIM had "literally opened their eyes" to issues of poverty, inequity and power imbalances. "Many of our students had never even been to a village, or seen the realities of rural life," says Fr Francis Xavier, Principal of Loyola College and a keen supporter of the CSIM programme. "Even this brief exposure has had a huge impact on their thinking." His enthusiasm has helped CSIM expand the focus of its student programmes.

"While MBA students were our initial focus, we soon moved to other disciplines, trying to customise projects to suit student needs and interests," says Vatsala, who coordinates CSIM student programmes. The Student Volunteer Consultant Programme (SVCP) is now complemented by an undergraduate programme that commits students each year to 20 hours of involvement in the social sector. At Fr Xavier's insistence, this programme has become mandatory in Loyola College.

Gayathri Ramanan, a learning coordinator at CSIM, describes how a group of food technology students from Loyola were assigned to study the nutritional value of meals provided by homes run for disadvantaged children. They were asked to suggest a low-cost and nutritious diet plan.

"It was a revelation for them," recalls Gayathri, since "most had no idea how these places were run, or what they looked like." In developing their diet plan, they focussed on the buying power of the group, and planned menus that were high on protein and fibre, yet low-cost.

Bhuvaneswari emphasises that this experience is different from the usual volunteer activities built into college and school curricula. "The important link between professional skills and the needs of the social sector is made," she says. "The hope is that some of these students, at some point in their lives, will be motivated to work in this sector."

CSIM believes that organisations in the social sector need to go beyond "charity" to develop an "entrepreneurial" mindset; to move from "funding to financing" social ventures. They hope to tap the potential of today's young people who "are basically problem-solvers."

CSIM is also establishing Entrepreneurship Learning Clubs (ELC) in Hyderabad and Secunderabad to familiarisecollege students with the social sector through monthly lectures and interactive sessions, and to enable them to pick up ancillary skills.

Bhuvaneswari has remained in touch with SVCP participants from four initial batches, to gauge the usefulness of the programme. Many are in mainstream corporate jobs, with little time or energy for other things. "But they tell us the involvement with the social sector has been useful in unexpected ways — they are able to interact better with different kinds of people, and understand how things fit together."

CSIM hopes to make people see that social responsibility is not an option, but a necessity — and that it calls for creative problem solving and professionalism just like in any other field. "And where better to start than with young minds?" says Bhuvaneswari.

Women's Feature Service

Picture by Mohammed Yousuf

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