A fellowship programme that helps youngsters ‘BE THE CHANGE’

It was during the lockdown in 2020, that Arun Krishnamurthy who was actively volunteering, learnt about a village called Venmanampudhur in Tiruvallur district.

The villagers had no means to earn a livelihood and were struggling for their food and income. The then district collector of Tiruvallur, Mageswari Ravikumar IAS brought the plight of this village to his attention and he immediately began to help them with rations.

While reaching out to different people for resources to help the village, he found a kindred soul in Adhavan Adityan, a media executive who was also independently working on several social causes. Both passionate change-makers, they had earlier collaborated on a few lake restoration projects, but it was the pandemic that brought about the realisation that any tangible change required support by way of clear direction, guidance and a large-scale mobilisation of resources. That’s what gave rise to the idea of Fellow Citizen. Adhavan Adityan, whose roots are in media, and Arun Krishnamurthy, an eco-warrior, formally joined hands to launch an initiative called Fellow Citizen, a fellowship programme to empower young social entrepreneurs and help them achieve their goals.

“Fellow Citizen is a programme that is designed to identify and support young individuals or groups who are working to transform society. There are many young social entrepreneurs and passionate social leaders among us with interesting ideas that could bring a social change. It can be in the field of healthcare, environment and education. But many are unable to execute their projects due to a lack of resources. Such social projects shouldn’t get stopped and must be introduced to the world. Arun and I believe that if these youngsters get the resources they need, they will be able to implement their projects more effectively,” says Adhavan.

The one-year fellowship programme will provide young leaders with funding, project incubation support and other project-related resources. “If you have a project or an idea that is result-oriented and practical, you can apply for the fellowship before May 30. As we want to support younger social entrepreneurs, the candidates should be between the age group of 18-30. After an application and interview process, a small group of entrepreneurs whose projects have potential will be selected. The selected applicants will then undergo project training related to the fellowship. Once it’s done, they will be supported with a seed fund,” shares Arun Krishnamurthy.

The first fellowship to be launched is CoVision, a chapter of the fellowship that will focus on ideas and programmes for COVID relief. “The pandemic has disrupted our lives and has changed the way we look at the world. We are looking at social projects aimed at solving pandemic-related challenges that also include a solution to the ongoing health crisis. Since we are based in Chennai, we are initially looking at existing or new projects based in Tamil Nadu,” explains Adhavan.

The range of projects that the CoVision Fellowship programme can support includes counsellors, awareness/sensitisation campaigns, home-cooked meals for COVID-19 patients, manufacturing of medical equipment, intermediary child care, senior citizen care, network/collaborators who can help find beds/concentrators, and other complementary projects that can provide support during these difficult times. The fellowship is divided into two phases — the first phase will begin in July and end by December 2021 and the second is from January to July 2022.

Going ahead, the fellowship will expand to different areas that include gender issues, healthcare, animal welfare and several other causes.