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Urban Indian youth from modest backgrounds determined to pursue higher education overseas despite shrinking scholarships and pandemic gloom, take to crowdfunding sites, fighting trolls to convince donors their financial help will be worth it.
When the Savannah College of Art and Design (SCAD), USA, confirmed 22-year-old Aishwarya Shivalkar's admission to the institute last year, the latter was more worried than excited. While she was halfway through fulfilling her dream, the road ahead looked difficult. The course fee was Rs 30 lakh. "After I lost my father in 2016, my mother single-handedly took up the responsibility of raising my younger brother, who is currently pursuing a degree of Bachelor of Fine Arts at the Sir JJ School of Art, and me," says Mumbai-based Shivalkar. She was still pursuing her design degree from the United World Institute of Design in Ahmedabad, when she lost her father.
With her high scores in the first year, the institute offered her a scholarship, which reduced the fee, ensuring that she could complete the degree successfully. She has also taken up a job with Curious Canvas, an interior designing firm in Dadar, to help her mother, who works with a school and is a part-time accounts manager at a firm. "But, this is not the life I chose. My interest lies in architecture and furniture design, a skill that is not going to get the recognition here that it will in the US. I knew this path would not be easy, but I am a lot like my mother, challenging the challenges in life."
The loss of the sole bread-winner hurled Shivalkar's family into a warp of difficulties. Her mother had to sell their home to pay off pending bills and move to a smaller residence. With no property or wealth to show, Shivalkar found it difficult to get an education loan. "That is when I came across a crowdfunding campaign. Initially, I didn't seek that route, as I thought crowdfunding only helped those in need of medical help. But, then education is also equally important."
Around a month ago, Shivalkar launched her crowdfunding campaign on ImpactGuru.com to raise Rs 20 lakh. She has managed to raise Rs 50,000, and remains hopeful. In an emerging trend, several students with dreams of getting a foreign education have started turning to crowdfunding to help with the exorbitant fees.
Piyush Jain, co-founder and CEO of ImpactGuru.com, says, "While crowdfunding platforms were initially roped in to raise funds for medical reasons, the pandemic led to a steep rise in the number of campaigns for those who lost their breadwinners to COVID-19. We have witnessed a month-on-month rise in education-related fundraisers since June 2020. The highest number is over 300, recorded in February 2021".
Like Shivalkar, Sharon Fiona from Hyderabad has a head full of dreams. This 23-year-old daughter of a vegetable vendor from Hyderabad's Vijaipuri Colony is determined to undertake research in microfinance after landing a Banking and Accounts degree from Queen Mary Degree College in Secunderabad. Aware that there are few opportunities in India, Fiona finally managed to get admission to the University of Texas. She hopes to raise Rs 17 lakh and has hit the Rs 1.5 lakh mark. "I want to study finance and come back to India to help change the situation here." Fiona's mother is a cancer survivor. Her father's vegetable business has been affected in the pandemic, taking a toll on his health too. But, Fiona believes that their lives will change, if she secures a good education. She has applied for a national overseas scholarship, but as that process is still pending--and even if approved will only be disbursed after the first semester of her course--she is trying to raise as much as possible through crowdfunding.
"With exposure comes the knowledge of good opportunities, and individuals like myself want to take that leap of faith. But unfortunately, lack of funding and scholarship options for deserving youth in India have made talented candidates turn to crowdfunding," said Yashwant Zagade, a PhD scholar from Tata Institute of Social Sciences, who is currently working on a research paper on OBC politics in Maharashtra. Zagade says that crowdfunding options for educational purposes show the vulnerability of students, as the financial support from the government has not increased in proportion to the number of students going to other countries for higher education. "This is especially the case with those from reserved categories, who are in need of funds. The pandemic is just one angle of this new emerging trend," added Zagade.
Crowdfunding platform Ketto.org has hosted over 3.2 lakh fundraisers till date, out of which 10 per cent are education-related. Incidentally, they have recorded a growth of 300 per cent in the number of education fundraisers in the past one year.
One such campaigner on Ketto.org, who is attempting to raise Rs 7 lakh for college fees is Aakash Sharma, 26. A student of the PGDM programme at a private college in Noida, he says that the pandemic has hit his family hard, bringing personal tragedy along with the burden of loans and EMIs. In May this year, Sharma lost his father. On a friend's suggestion, he put out a call for funds on Ketto.org to help him and his 20-year-old brother Harshit, a BTech Computer Science student. Aakash has been able to raise close to Rs 1,70,000 so far, most through donations from known quarters, but says that the response has been underwhelming. Ketto.org, however, allows campaigners to both extend the period of the fundraiser if the target amount is not met in the stipulated time, and also withdraw the amount available at any point.
Jain observes that between June and November 2020, ImpactGuru.com witnessed a rise in crowdfunding campaigns initiated to cover the tuition fees of underprivileged students. "While these are not the conventional fundraising campaigns, as a crowdfunding platform, we wanted our donors to decide whether they wanted to help or not."
These individual fundraisers have also met with trolls on the Internet. "They have a right to ask, you have a right to deny. Why troll?" questions Arun Raghuraman a 39-year-old software professional from Bengaluru. Raghuraman has managed to successfully raise a total of Rs 52,000 on ImpactGuru.com within just 25 days to help his laundryman Netaji Bose pay for his children's education, donating around R10,000 himself to the cause. "As the target was smaller, it could be completed sooner. But now the Indian mindset has changed after seeing the effects of the pandemic. Netaji, who I have known for over a decade, has never asked for help. But, I could see his struggle. Similarly, for those wanting to go abroad, it is the story of their struggle that speaks to the donors."
Harshali Nagrale, a 25-year-old, who is heading to Royal Holloway College in London for a second Masters degree, was also at the receiving end of trolls when she first shared her campaign on social media. "I was initially disturbed by the negative comments; I was called a 'beggar' and 'elite Ambedkarite' among other things. But when I introspected, I realised that I am not answerable to those doubting my intentions. My friends too, encouraged my plan of crowdfunding. Yes, I am taking from the community, but I am going to give back to the community."
Nagrale, who has a Masters degree in Women Centred Practices from TISS, is hoping to pursue a second Masters in Political Science and International Relations with a specialisation in Election Campaign and Democracy. She hails from the Ballarshah industrial area in the Chandrapur district of Maharashtra, where her father has retired as a paper-mill worker. The youngest of three sisters, Nagrale has big dreams and is willing to make the effort to realise them. She applied for the course in the hope of securing a scholarship. But, the pandemic-induced financial crisis led many institutes to halt disbursal of scholarships.
Nagrale, who worked with the Indian Political Action Committee then, had almost given up, when she was deployed on-ground during the recent West Bengal Assembly Election. Here, she realised her keen interest in the subject and dusted her abandoned plan. She now works with the Jan Sahas Foundation. "I could not apply for a loan as my family is already repaying one. I started reaching out to all possible organisations, which could help me monetarily. Then, a friend suggested the crowdfunding platform," shared Nagrale, who began her campaign for Rs 33 lakh, of which she managed to raise Rs 31 lakh in just over a month's time.
Monalisa Barman from Tura, Meghalaya, studied Law and then Social Work, specialising in Dalit and tribal action, at TISS, before working with human rights-based organisations that focused on issues concerning the environment, trafficking of women from the Northeast and their rehabilitation. Her recent work has been in the field of reproductive and abortion rights, and is based on her research on the tea plantation workers of Assam.
Back in her hometown since last year, Barman has conducted human rights training programmes in villages with youth and women's groups, and is also offering pro bono legal advice.
The 31-year-old applied for a Masters degree in Public Administration at Columbia University and got her acceptance letter in March. The happy news, however, was soon overshadowed by her ordeal to arrange for the course fee. The university's own limited scholarship funds this year meant that she would have to apply for loans. Barman explains that substantial documentation is required to arrange for collateral when applying for a bank loan in an area that falls under the Sixth Schedule, something that became especially difficult to arrange during the lockdown with offices shut and the employees of the Garo Hills Autonomous
District Council (GHADC) going on an indefinite hunger strike in early March.
Barman contacted the Ministry of Tribal Affairs, but her mails were only forwarded to its Scholarship Division without any response. Member of Parliament Agatha Sangma, who represented the Tura constituency of Meghalaya following the 2009 parliamentary election, also wrote to the Ministry upon her request, but that was met with similar results. She even approached Chief Minister Conrad Kongkal Sangma, but the state's lack of provisions for scholarship for students going abroad meant nothing came of that. "I was at my wit's end," recalls Barman who, while still trying to arrange for loans, started a fundraiser on Milaap.org about three weeks ago. It was her last resort, as she had to raise Rs 70 lakh by August 1.
She is expected to be at the university by the end of August. "For me, going to a big university is not just about studying there, it's about a cause. There is very little representation from the Northeast or the indigenous community in the policymaking space, and the aim is to help the community develop. We get into these programmes through merit; finance shouldn't be a constraint for people like us to not be there," says Barman, who will be the first woman from her tribe--a matriarchal clan called Koch--to go abroad for higher education, when most in it end up studying only till Class XII. Barman says she has been able to raise Rs 35,50,000 so far. "There's still some way to go, but I feel better knowing that there is some hope."
Helping Nagrale, Barman and three other women candidates--Golden Singh, Disha Amble and Aliha Ansari--with their ongoing fundraising campaigns, are a group of designers and illustrators, who are selling their art and calling out to other digital artists to do the same. "These women have worked extensively in their respective fields, and are deserving of where they want to go [Oxford and Queen Mary universities and the International Institute of Social Studies in Hague, Netherlands]. I thought it would be better if a few of us could come together and make it more organised. I cannot help them financially, but I can help by amplifying their cause, and see that even a small amount of money can be added every single day," says a designer, who goes by the name @thebigfatbao on Instagram.
The initiative gathered momentum in the beginning of June with conversations on Clubhouse. While Dalit music artist Sumeet Samos's successful campaign--which raised Rs 37,17, 905 from 1,575 supporters in less than a day, towards his tuition fees for a Modern South Asian Studies degree from Oxford University--was encouraging, the designer points out that it worked in his favour, both because he was the first to do it, and also because he was a well-known artiste. Gender has a massive role to play, says @thebigfatbao, adding that people need more convincing, when it comes to donating for women's education.
Their appeals have also attracted casteist remarks. "People look at everything through the Savarna [forward castes] lens and wonder why these candidates can't simply apply for loans. We don't have that kind of social or financial capital to begin with," they say, pointing out how banking laws in Tier-1 cities are different from those in a Sixth Schedule area.
The group is looking to raise a total of Rs 1 crore for these candidates, and have been successful at meeting the Rs 56 lakh mark, so far. As part of the initiative, they acquire digital files from illustrators, who wish to contribute their art, organising them into different sizes and price brackets, which they plan to announce through their accounts on social media. For each set, the buyer will contribute the stipulated amount to one of the fundraisers, following which digital files of that particular set will be sent to the buyer for printing.
Racing against time, the group has also been trying to spread awareness about the campaigns, raise funds directly through social media and contact influential people, including those from the Hindi film industry. "When it comes to appropriation, Bollywood is ever ready, but when it comes to actually helping people, there is a deathly silence. It'll be a massive heartbreak for us if we are not able to send our women to study. It will also be a hard hit on their mental health knowing that they were so close to realising an impossible dream."
Source: Mid-Day
