Bengaluru: The undergraduate course gives one an idea as to where their future should be heading and while that’s the case with majority of the students, a group of students from Bangalore, the Southern city of India are focusing on improving the quality of life of few underprivileged students in the city.

Igniting Young Minds is the holistic education program started by Leaders for Tomorrow, which is a not-for-profit youth movement started in India, who members mainly consist of students. Their primary motive is to provide children from less privileged backgrounds to become a better individual in life.

Their primary focus is to help the children of less privileged background of age group between six to 14 with life skill training, academic support and creative learning. The youth volunteers visit shelter homes and orphanages and conduct various sessions over several weeks in nurturing these young kids and also encouraging them to get discover their talent and hone them.

Leaders for Tomorrow started this project in Delhi and they are presently reaching out to over 2500 children, taking their overall tally to over 30,000 children. They have now moved to Bangalore and nearby cities and have already helping 450 underprivileged children.

The program includes multiple sessions of two hours each, stretched over several weeks. They primarily focus on life skills which are centered on etiquette, safety, general awareness, importance of sanitation and cleanliness. In addition to this, include activities to incorporate moral values and lessons into our sessions through storytelling and drama, along with other activities to identify the kids’ talent.

Igniting Young Minds have a structure in place for these sessions and they identify kids depending on their age group. The kids are divided into two different groups, the first one consist of kids between the age group six to 10, while the second group is between the age group of 11 to 14.

Depending on the individual capability and area of strength, the youth volunteers will be assigned with a group of kids belonging to each orphanages or shelters, which they term as centers.

Each center will have a center head and they have a dedicated session plan for each of them, with the flexibility of altering them in certain cases. Leaders for Tomorrow’s general manager Uma Parvathy explains what they are planning to achieve through this program.

“Igniting Young Minds is about giving children who come from a less privileged backgrounds a better chance at life,” Parvathy told IBTimes Singapore.

“The fact is that it is not enough to provide them an opportunity to learn math and science, they need to be prepared for their futures. Very often very simple manners and etiquette become things that these children do not know and puts them at a disadvantaged position.

“It is this gap that we hope to bridge and what better way than to empower the youth and channelize their efforts for such a cause? Today, Leaders For Tomorrow has been able to engage over one lakh volunteers in various such initiatives across the country.”

Shivam Sharma is an engineering student in Bangalore’s PES University. He is also the Karnataka state head for Igniting Young Minds and he already has a vision in taking the organisation forward in the Southern state of India.

He says, “Our vision is to reach out to more people in different cities and towns all across Karnataka so that we could help young college students to be socially aware and through our program, they could help these children and leave a positive impact on their lives.”

(Source: International Business Times)