SAMARTH Fellowship Program 2024-25
Application closes at 21st April 24
At Sarva SANDHI Foundation, we are pleased to announce the second cohort of the SAMARTH Fellowship Program, open to Indian youths for 2024-2025. This opportunity enables young graduates to enhance their cognition, awareness, skills, and competencies, equipping them to take on diverse roles in challenging social change processes.
Throughout the journey of running the SAMARTH initiative last year, our trust and hope in the power of Fellowship for experiential learning and developing socially empathetic leaders have deepened. The growing Fellowship opportunities across governments, policy think tanks, NGOs, CSR initiatives, corporations, academic institutions, and allied development organizations recognize the potential of youth leadership in all facets of social development.
Sharing over 550 Fellowship and Young Professional opportunities through 89 SAMARTH weekly opportunity alerts underscores both the significance of and our commitment to the cause of youth leadership in the social development sector.
As a promising career guidance and capacity-building opportunity, the SAMARTH Fellowship is a transformative 9-month self-leadership program designed for graduates and young professionals. Additionally, final-year undergraduate and postgraduate students find it highly effective for gaining insightful learning, building competencies, forming peer communities, and preparing for upcoming opportunities. Every inaugural batch SAMARTH Fellow benefited from last year’s program, finding significant assistance in securing placements.
Additionally, several entry-level professionals gained insights into the development sector, enabling advancements in their career paths.
This e-brochure outlines the SAMARTH Fellowship Program, including its eligibility criteria, costs, joining procedures, and benefits of joining the second cohort. I also encourage you to visit our website and social media platforms for clarity and regular updates. If you have any further questions, please don’t hesitate to contact our team.
Here is your chance to become an exceptionally skilled young social leader, adept at solving complex community issues. On behalf of my team at SSF, SAMARTH Fellowship alumni, and partners, I welcome you to apply, share, and contribute to the SAMARTH Fellowship Program Applications for 2024-25.
SAMARTH Initiative Mission
With our mission to democratize social-impact-based fellowships for youth experiential learning in India, we aim to nurture socially empathetic leaders. We envision building a pool of 10,000 young leaders in the coming decade through the SAMARTH Fellowship Program, mentorship platform, and allied channels. Additionally, we aim to reach 1 million youths by creating awareness about social development fellowships and jobs through collaborations
with academic institutions, development organizations, and governments.
By acquiring the necessary knowledge, organizational skills, growth mindset, and career guidance, our youth will be empowered to tackle the most complex challenges within their communities. The program will ensure capacity building and provide support to help them attain greater livelihood prospects with job opportunities aligned to their skills.
About Sarva SANDHI Foundation
“Sarva” (meaning “all, everyone”) and “SANDHI” (meaning “joining, coming together, or collaboration”) unite to form Sarva SANDHI, an NGO in India registered as a Section 8 company under the Companies Act, 2013.
The Sarva SANDHI Foundation is dedicated to catalyzing the social development process in India through a Sustainable Approach to Networking and Developing Holistic Initiatives (SANDHI) for all. SSF collaborates closely with youths to build their social leadership to increase their awareness, participation, and ownership in the social development process in India.
Vision
To foster an aware, empathetic, and empowered society through social-empathetic leadership and collaboration
Mission
To drive social change as catalysts by fostering partnerships and mobilizing children, youth, and women for their
development
Our Core Values
We incite the following values into our choices, efforts, and works to prosper in our mission.
- Integrity
- Collaboration
- Flexibility
- Empathy
- Service to a cause greater than self.
The SAMARTH Fellowship Program is a 9-month self-leadership program aimed at enhancing the capacities of youth to shape their career paths towards social change. The journey focuses on ensuring that youth enter the social development sphere equipped with the necessary cognition, compassion, and competencies to address intrinsic developmental challenges. The program encourages experiential learning offered by over 200 prestigious social-impact-based Fellowships in India. SAMARTH Fellowship engages youth in three components: self-development, peer activities, and achieving career aspirations through well-defined structural processes.
The leadership program will immerse Fellows into real-life situations faced by social sector practitioners through following channels:
Aware: Raising awareness about the scope and significance of the social development sector and exposure to entry-level roles in jobs and prestigious fellowships in India.
Educate: Facilitating a learning curriculum, providing knowledge and skill-building resources, and organizing learning exposure visits. Hosting workshops and sessions to enhance competencies and engage in insightful co-creational activities.
Empower and Sustain: Building youths’ capacities and fostering a growth mindset through structured processes, channeling them towards social development endeavors. Providing personalized support channels and co-creating prerequisites to help them access aspirational opportunities.
Objectives
- To raise awareness about social development roles throughentry-level jobs and fellowships in India.
- To develop learning publications and skill-building resources.
- To build the capacities of youth through structured processes and channel them into social development initiatives.
- To create a community pool of social-empathetic leaders.
- To network with academic institutions, social development professionals, organizations, and governments.
Program Structure
- SAMARTH Fellowship Program is designed with a three-pillared approach to ensure effective capacity building of young leaders:
- Knowledge: Creating awareness about social development roles, opportunities, and needs identification.
- Establishing a foundational understanding of public policy, its implementation, and key stakeholders involved.
- Competencies: Developing organizational skills like communication, documentation, collaboration, strategic planning, and related areas. Also emphasizing the adoption of systems thinking approaches.
- Aspirational Career Preparation: Crafting personalized resources (such as CVs, cover letters, statements of purpose, letters of intent, portfolios, and connections) to meet the requirements for applying to job and fellowship opportunities in India.
The Uniqueness of SAMARTH Fellowship
- Most Flexible Fellowship: This is a part-time, virtual, and self- development-focused opportunity and requires engagements of 10-12 hours, every week.
- Democratic values: i.e., of the youths, by the youths, and for the youths. Focused on reaching all the youths of India for awareness, conducting the leadership program with passionate individuals, and ensuring all strategies are devised by the youths.
- Fellowship of Fellowships: This Fellowship will guide and encourage fellows to join prestigious Fellowship opportunities in India.
- Technology-aided-Innovation: Operationalise through every digital platform like website, WhatsApp peer group, e-meets, workshops, in-house publications, learning resources, and personalized conversations.
- Fellowship of expressions: The Fellowship will encourage individual expression in all dimensions like stories, blogs, individual passion, empathetic interactions, and other activities.
- Fellowship of social leaders: This fellowship envisions developing passionate youth to take charge, join the development sector, and build themselves into social leaders with the right cognition, compassion, and competencies.
- People Behind: Our team has first-hand lived experiences of pain followed by the gains from over 7 prestigious Indian and International Fellowships altogether.
The SAMARTH Fellowship Services
- SamBodh A weekly thematic session to build competencies
- Fellow Mania A fellow-led co-creational learning platform
- Mentor-संवा द Personalised mentorship from mid-social leaders
- Opportunity Updates Weekly Fellowships & Young Professional opportunity alerts and bulletins
- Knowledge Publications & Resources Aid learning through insightful modules, blogs, books, reports, allies.
- Learning Expo Building profiles, portfolios, applying opportunities, and hand-holding in aspirational career paths.
- Career Saarthi Practice competencies in assigned tasks, peer activities, and external opportunities.
- Groomed Implementers Participation in bootcamps at different phases and allied learning exposure events.
- Professional referrals and recommendations.
Our Knowledge Resources
- Boot camps, Workshops,
- Guest lectures
- Peer community Knowledge resources & publications
- Blogs and Digital media contents
- Videos Virtual courses and masterpieces
- Group Discussions Mentors Assignment
Application Process
Eligibility
- Must be passionate about working in the social development sector.
- Must be an Indian citizen aged 27 years or younger.
- Must have completed graduation in any field or be in the final year of their course.
Selection Process
- Application forms Live (March 30th- April 21st, 2024)
- Longlisting (till April 30th, 2024)
- Check-in calls (first week of May 2024)
- Interviews (mid May 2024)
- Acceptance Offers (by May 31st, 2024)
- Final Onboarding (first week, June 2024)
*The dates and timeline are tentative and might change under unforeseen circumstances.
**The batch size of the SAMATH Fellowship’s second cohort is 30 fellows, with early applicants prioritized for review and offers. Selection is first-come, first-served. Apply Fast.
Fellowship Costs
The SAMARTH Fellowship aims to democratize access to fellowships in India by providing comprehensive-sponsored support services to youth participants. The program is designed to be accessible to individuals from tribal, rural, and semi-urban areas across India, with no costs incurred by fellows. All fellowship expenses, including tuition fees, resources, mentorship, training events, and related costs, are solely covered by SSF.
However, fellows do not receive monthly stipends during their 9-months journey. Fellows are expected to dedicate 10-12 hours per week to various self-development activities within our learning and growth ecosystem. The organization’s return on investment is measured by fellows’ personal growth and their subsequent placements in the social sector, including prestigious entry-level jobs, aspirational career paths, and fellowships in India.
