Viveka Scholar Program
Started in 2006
Mysuru, Dharwad & Bengaluru Districts
Building Human &
Social Capital
Community centric
partnership
Identify local role models who become agents of change
To support socio – economically challenged, academically meritorious students to excel and pursue meaningful professional education
Academic & economic support for students in Pre-University
Scholarship support to meritorius students pursuing higher education
211 Meritorious students coming from humble economic backgrounds received a scholarship of INR 45,95,000 to pursue higher education in engineering, medical, science streams and other diploma courses in VSP’s annual event ‘Yuva Payana’
A frame capturing our focuse on equitable education for girl students at Yuva Payana
IMPACT STORY
Viveka Pre University College (VPUC)
Building the Human Capital through education
Maniya V N, an alumnus of Viveka Scholar Program has just joined the PhD program at IIT Guwahati. After being selected by IIT Madras, IIT Dharwad, NISER Bhubaneswar and IIT Guwahati, he chose to pursue research in synthetic organic chemistry at IIT Guwahati.
Maniya comes from Vadakanamala, a small village in the DB Kuppe Gram Panchayath close to the Kerala border. He studied at GHPS D B Kuppe and GHS D B Kuppe before studying at Maharaja’s College (PU), Yuvaraja’s College (B.Sc) and the University of Mysore (M.Sc).
After choosing to pursue science against the advice of friends and teachers, Maniya found it too difficult to cope with the English medium in 1st PU and had decided to switch to Arts stream. As a part of the procedure to switch streams, he had to submit an application to his Principal and seek his permission. While preparing his application, he overheard his Principal scolding the applicant before him and he feared facing the Principal and quit the scene. Later, counselled by his mentors in SVYM’s Viveka Scholar Program and with grit, he continued in the science stream and did excel in what he did.
Maniya’s parents Nanjegowda and Sharadha own a 1-acre agricultural plot and work as daily wage labourers. He has a younger brother and sister.
Maniya is an example of several hundreds of talented students who come out of our schools needing the right ladder to take them places. Students like him continue to excel inspite of the settings and not because of the settings – no teachers at school, no good PU science college for 80 km, insufficient family income to support his education as well as the medical expenses of his parents, poor network connectivity to attend online classes, no education loans without collateral…
We had the opportunity to work with Maniya from his High school days through the Vijnana Vahini (mobile science lab) and later during his PU days through the Scholar program.