XLRI Students Intern with Social Ventures

From The Telegraph

XLRI pupils to learn on the job

ANTARA BOSE

On course Jamshedpur, Sept. 7: A social entrepreneurship course at XLRI will now come with an internship at a national-level NGO. The B-school has planned to introduce internship in the curriculum of social entrepreneurship, an elective course, from this year after the success of Parichay, a social entrepreneurship programme, last time. “From this year onwards, the curriculum of the course will include an internship programme. The idea is to enable students to know how an organisation functions. Every student will have to complete a project to learn the hiccups in the area,” said Madhukar Shukla, a faculty of social entrepreneurship. About 14 students have already begun their internship in NGOs such as Pravah, Prayas, iDiscoveri in New Delhi; Aarambh in Bhopal; Helen Keller Institute of Deaf, Blind and Dumb, Mumbai; SEWA video in Ahmedabad and a few based in Jamshedpur such as Ujjivan and Kalamandir. The course has also undergone a change from this year. Instead of the one-term course, social entrepreneurship will now become a two-term (six month) one. “The purpose of the internship is to help students gain a first-hand experience of working in a social venture, in a sector of their choice. This learning will also help them to develop their business plans and acumen for latter part of the course,” said Shukla. From this year, students were also made to do a field work that comprised meeting 10-15 hawkers, rickshaw pullers and door-to-door visit to see their lives close quarter. “The visit has been made compulsory because most of our students come from urban middle class and if they want to bring a change, they will have to understand the lives of the downtrodden, their situation and economic condition,” he said. “We may not earn like other management students but will be able to bring about a social change. In order to start a social venture, we need to have a vision and the internship will also make us learn about the hiccups,” said Nidhi Rawal, one of the students of XLRI who is interning at Ujjivan in the city.