Eklavya India Foundation

Eklavya India Foundation works with first-generation university students from historically marginalised communities: Scheduled Castes, Scheduled Tribes, Nomadic and De-notified Tribes, and Other Backward Communities. It aims to widen access to higher education and build grassroots leadership, so that these students can get into leading universities, move into stable careers and break the cycle of poverty. Since 2017 it has run a model built on awareness, exposure, mentoring, coaching and relatable role models. It runs workshops for students who have little information about higher education, then gives them ongoing mentoring through entrance exams, applications, interviews and scholarships. Its alumni then come back as mentors and role models for the next group of students. The organisation is based at the Satyashodhak Youth Resource Center on its residential campus near Nagpur.

Headquarters: Nagpur, Maharashtra, India

Major Areas of Work

• Access to higher education: Helps first-generation learners understand their options and get into good undergraduate, postgraduate and international programmes.

• Mentoring and career guidance: Gives long-term, one-to-one support with course choice, entrance exams, interviews and applications.

• Scholarships and fellowships: Guides students to scholarships from government programmes, trusts and global institutions, and to development sector fellowships.

• Grassroots leadership: Builds confident young leaders who support their families and go on to mentor others in their communities.

• Social mobility: Opens up routes to meaningful careers, including national fellowships and jobs in policy and development.

Major Initiatives and Programmes

• Undergraduate Program: Guides first-generation students from marginalised communities into undergraduate courses at reputed colleges.

• Postgraduate Program: Starts with a three-day workshop covering higher education pathways, fellowships, reputed institutions, and how to prepare for entrance exams and interviews, followed by ongoing mentoring through admissions.

• Global Scholars Program: Starts with a boot camp led by mentors who study at leading universities abroad, followed by about a year of mentoring and coaching on choosing courses and universities, scholarship applications, IELTS preparation and immigration procedures.

• Awareness workshops: Workshops held across India that introduce first-generation students to higher education and career options.

• Alumni mentor network: Alumni working in national fellowships and policy and development jobs who mentor and act as role models for current students.

Impact

Eklavya India Foundation states that it has run more than 800 workshops, reached 500,000 first-generation students, and guided over 3,500 students into leading national and global universities. It reports admissions into more than 100 institutions and development fellowships, and an alumni network of over 1,000. Its site gives two figures for scholarships: one section says students have received more than USD 8 million, another says more than USD 5 million. It also gives two figures for mentorship: 1 million hours in one section and about 0.9 million in another. The organisation names TISS, Azim Premji University, Ashoka University, IIM Bangalore, IIT Guwahati, the University of Delhi, the University of Oxford, LSE, SOAS and the University of Leeds among the institutions its students have joined.

The work is direct, long-term mentoring of young people from Dalit, Adivasi, nomadic and backward-class communities, many of whom are the first in their village to reach a major university. Staff see the whole process: running workshops in rural areas, coaching students through exams, interviews and scholarship applications, and helping some of them move abroad to study. The work suits people who care about educational equity and caste justice, like one-to-one work with young people, and want to see each student's progress. It also gives exposure to admissions and scholarship systems in India and abroad, and to the development sector careers many alumni go into.