Youth reach out to villagers, tribals in Pune

“There is a strong divide between urban and rural communities which needs to be bridged. Youth can play a pivotal role in this regard,’’ said Sourabh Potdar, who sacrificed his plump salary with a corporate firm for a year and stayed with villagers in Jawhar taluka of Thane district.

Potdar was one of the ten young men who were a part of the State Bank of India’s (SBI) ‘Youth for India’ fellowship programme assigned under the city’s BIAF Development Research Foundation.  

These youth sacrificed the plump salaries they were earning under multinational companies for a year and worked with the villagers, including tribals of different tracts in Maharashtra, Gujarat and Karnataka.

DNA got a chance to interact with them on the occasion of the World Youth Day on Friday at BIAF in Warje. “Youth are known for their passion and serving the deprived is a good way to serve society,’’ said Haresh Bhere, who was working with Tata Motors before joining the fellowship.

Under the programme, the fellows are sent to remote villages to understand the problems of the poor.

“The SBI has taken this initiative with the aim of enhancing the participation of the youth to empower rural communities,’’ said coordinator of the SBI programme, Geeta Verghese.

Some of these youth taught English to schoolchildren in rural areas. A few of them took up work in the area of women’s empowerment, while others were involved in value chain development to fetch better price for the agricultural produce grown by the tribals.

According to the fellows, water shortage, illiteracy and corruption are the main problems faced by the villagers. “The babus cheat the villagers and deprive them of the facilities, which they are entitled to,’’ Vineet Kumar Singh told DNA. He worked with the tribes of Wadi, a small village in south Gujarat.