Agaram Foundation Annual Event

With family , I attended the annual Agaram Foundation meet on Jan 8^th  and what a good decision, it was to go with family, especially my daughter . As most of you may be  aware , the Agaram Foundation supports educational needs of needy children – this is at the College level—

The event  was on a Sunday early morning and we spent around four hours at the event – by the time we came out , there was lot emotion , tears but joy on seeing and hearing out great success stories that were narrated on stage by the ones that benefitted from this excellent Foundation set by Actor Suriya and his brother and family. Great work  done to reach where they are today but I am sure they are going to scale this pretty heavily.

I have had the good fortune to work with the Agaram team on many occasions ( Ford works with this NGO on various initiatives ) but this was the first time that I got to hear firsthand  the lovely journey of various successful students .

The Agaram Model –

Through a program that seeks to enable those that cannot get in to Universities on their own , Agaram has over the period of the past five , six years tied up with various colleges – Engineering , Arts and Science, Nursing  and Medical Universities , where admission is given to deserving students – Cost of Education , hostel ets is free to the student and borne by either Agaram or by the College which has tied up with Agaram to do so. Without support from educational institutions , this program would have been a non-starter .

Start of the Educational year , Agaram receives application from various sources requesting for support in finding a college that will help them gain the degree they want.

Agaram and its volunteers scrutinize these documents , arrange for home visits by the volunteers ( these are far flung towns that sometimes are difficult to access ) to check on validity of the request , One on one interviews  are also conducted and then conclusions are drawn that the applicant can be progressed. Then link up happens between the applicant and the College.

Agaram stays in touch with every student through their entire curriculum period – further , Agaram conducts workshops at regular intervals for these students that helps them with making progress on various aspects—Soft Skills , behavioral , ethics and so on . Mentors are also attached to these students . These are resources that the students can connect at any time and this  helps them immensely to settle down in the new environment .  

The data  on the last years is just stunning – over the past five years , Agaram received around 37000 applications , 17500 one on one interviews were conducted  and close to 13000 house visits ,   out of which 1490 were selected to join , 550 have graduated and 460 have been placed in employment . Heartening was the fact that close to 60 % of these graduates were women and around 82 % were first time graduates in their families. Not an easy task to do but this has been done and has set a great platform for Agaram to expand on what they are doing ( Intake is normally 250 students every year )

The Success Stories

Plenty of them –

We heard Priyanka talk about her broken family , no place to live (this when she was eight years old ) , raised by her grandparents , studying under street lights , getting good marks in her school leaving examination and then some good Samaritan pointing her out to Agaram and the rest as they say is history – today she is qualified nurse working at a leading hospital.

We hear of Krishnaveni whose parents died when she was young , due to HIV and then today she is Doctor. 

We hear out Yogi who flew in from Delhi to talk about his journey – He now works for McKinney after his Engineering at Anna University

We hear out  Aravind who is a  Engineer from MIT, Chennai and  an IIM Indore Post Graduate who now works at Pidilite Industries , Mumbai.

There was this lady who came in with her husband and child and donated her one year salary to Agaram – Again she was one of the beneficiaries of the program

More and more … brought TEARS   in my eyes and to most of the audience whenever one of them went on stage to talk about their challenges and how they have overcome them.. just amazing and fascinating – So much positive energy from these stories and it is difficult to put pen to these emotions that overwhelmed everyone.

How to help ?

You can be a volunteer – let me warn you – this is not an easy task – You need to have the time , passion and be able to spare week ends – Volunteering could be to be  a mentor or conduct workshops and all these are over week ends. There are ground rules that you need to be trained on before you can go live !

If you know of any college or Educational institution that is willing to support with an admission and willing to bear the cost , let me know

There are always need for volunteers and you can sign up and take things as they come as well

One thing that I noticed in all these guys who came through is their grooming --- Ethical , honesty , doing the right thing were some key attributes that are imparted to these students during the workshops and mentoring sessions. The aim is not just to give education and employment but build good citizens of the country which is so important . All the guys who have come through , give back to their villages they came from which is again significant as this is one more proof of the pudding

Impressive is the work being done by this Foundation and may their tribe grow.