To the aid of underprivileged childrene

An Indian entrepreneur Prabhu Goel along with his wife Poonam Goel, started the Foundation for Excellence, a unique scholarship programme; designed to help disadvantaged children in India get a better future. They recognised the importance of education and more importantly, the key role played by the educated young in our country which can change India in a great way.

FEE Trustee Sudha Kidao says, “This Foundation for excellence programme will help students a lot as they will automatically have an edge over other freshers in this industry.”

The major focus is to help students to set up a career in engineering, technology or medicine. And today FFE boasts of having given their deserving students 20,000 scholarships across 25 states in India .Most of these youngsters are the first in their families to have the opportunity to pursue higher education. Each scholarship recipient from FFE makes a pledge to support at least two more students once the child has the capacity to do so. Students can apply when they are in the first year of a professional degree course with 70 per cent marks in their high school boards. These students belong to the top 15 percent of their class.

Almost 40 percent of their scholarships have been given to girls. FFE grants scholarships to deserving and academically good students from families with poor economic backgrounds in order to give them a better tomorrow. These scholarship programmes provide them with crucial financial and other assistance for higher studies to give them a chance to rise and shine above their circumstances.

Uma, is an example of a student who had immense interest in Science but her father insisted on her taking up Arts as they could not afford to pay the fees for an engineering degree. “As my family’s financial condition was very poor I could not pursue higher studies and I need to get a job,” she says.

“FFE has changed my life. My teacher told me about the FFE scholarship and I managed to get that.. It is the only reason I could take up engineering, otherwise I would be doing some small odd jobs,” Uma says. She is now pursuing her B.Tech and aims to help other FFE students once she gets a job.

The organisation has managed to provide more than Rs. 48 crores towards monetary support raised with the help of various donors and 500 volunteers.
FFE has managed to help thousands of students like her who dream big but are unable to achieve their dreams due to financial constraints.


On Facing the challenges

“The biggest challenge is engaging with the alumni as they are our only source to keep a track on the impact FFE has created,” says Sudha Kidao, Managing Trustee, FFE, and Bangalore.

Their idea is to bring together all their graduate students so that they can help other scholars in their respective fields. Also, identifying the right students and passionate volunteers takes time.

The students to whom aidwas granted belong to families with gross income of less than Rs.1,20,000 per year. Most of these youngsters are the first in their families to have the opportunity to pursue higher education. Each scholarship recipient from FFE makes a pledge to support at least two more students if they have the capacity to do so.This unique mentorship programme would require a corporate employee to be a mentor of an FFE scholar 2 hours every week to help the student. The students also get an opportunity to intern at these big corporate houses and if their work is impressive they can be made permanent. And to add more to their plans, FFE wants to expand and go beyond just financial help.They are coming up with a specialised programme where FFE scholars would be mentored by experts in the industry. For this, they have partnered with big corporates like Microsoft.Changing winds of better hopes for children!