Manipal Foundation, the charitable arm of the Manipal Group, extended their support to up bring the underprivileged rural youth by making them job-ready through a vocational course drawn by Edurite technologies, an advanced tutorial institute. The pilot batch started with 15 students of which eleven were girls and four were boys. This programme was customized keeping in mind specific job needs. Over a span of six weeks the students learn social skills, grooming and communication, basics of computer and spoken English. Rajiv Agarwal, President of Edurite Tutorials, Division of Manipal K-12 Education Pvt. Ltd said “the students were taught basic customer service skills, which is essentially the dos and don’ts in the retail industry. Spoken English and basic IT skills were also a part of the course. The sessions were made in an interactive format for the students so that they could get rid of the hesitation. Group discussions were conducted, which was an important part of the entire spoken English program. This was done so that they could comprehend what is being said and done. And answer questions on the basis of what they hear, most of the time they do not want to speak because of the lack of confidence. We presented to them a typical scenario of retail store, like what are the actions they should take and make choices between what is right or wrong, and look out as to why the customer is important” He added “it was an amazing experience to see the students talking on a podium once they completed the course.”  


Catching up with Balachandran Warrier, the CEO of Manipal Foundation who explained to MyBangalore.com on the ethos of the foundation, and the dynamic role they were playing in development of healthcare, education, research and other non-profit activities. The foundation which was started in 2002 has grown considerably since Warrier came on board. “The foundation is necessarily divided into four verticals, education, healthcare, research and social upliftment of the poor. Though we started in 2002, we were predominantly doing scholarships in Manipal, infact our registered office was in Manipal. But the organisation was pretty dormant because they didn’t have an executive body to run it. In 2007, I met Dr. Pai after which I came on board. Today we support more than two hundred and fifty open heart surgeries for poor people in this building, in this very moment. We support in three hospitals, Manipal Hospital, Bangalore; Kasturba Medical College, Mangalore and Kasturba Medical College Hospital, Manipal. The patient pays a very nominal amount, and we pay the remaining. We do various other surgeries like bone marrow transplant as well, and it is done only for the really poor and needy, and it is determined through a process. We look at very serious details and once we’ve formatted them, and we pay the money to the hospitals. We do it for five hospitals across India. We do it for people from all over the world, recently we did it for over 100 patients from Bangladesh” said Warrier.

Along with health care, the foundation also funds scholarships to aspiring students who study in Manipal University. In 2009, the foundation decided to concentrate more on education. Warrier said, “We decided to start with some in-house lower level employees in Manipal. High-level employees, have world class education for their children. But what about the punes, clerks, whose children go to small schools. Hence, I decided to start with in-house employees, and that is how my connection with Edurite came in. We, selected 27 students, and we began teaching them in the Edurite centre, subjects like English, and CET for 11thand 12th. Edurite tutorials also belong to Manipal group, and whenever we do any scheme is a participatory scheme. Even for a scholarship, Edurite pays a part of the fees, we pay a part, and the student pays a part as well. It was later that Edurite decided to do a vocational training course for the underprivileged, and they approached me and we put together a pilot batch, and if it’s successful we’ll take it forward. It started with 22 people, from rural areas near Bangalore. Finally, fifteen children passed out through this sex week intensive course in the Edurite Malleshwaram campus. I even went for an impromptu inspection to the campus to check the standards, and I think the campus was beautiful. The students were in the age group of 18- 25, and some of the girls who have children as well. During their graduation ceremony, many of the students came up and spoke, and the level of confidence was something which surprised me. I strongly believe that the students should at least pay a minimal amount of the fees, in that way at least there would be some sort of commitment to the course” said Warrier.   

He added that the program would be branched out in other cities across India as well. Warrier added that the biggest benefit of this program was that, the students would benefit, and learn the importance of education, their own children would benefit from education. Warrier added that the Manipal group spend at least 30 crores on their social benefit purposes. “This is one foundation which has no administration expenses, we are lean and mean” said Warrier. He said that the administrative structure of the foundation is very strong which is very important because most NGO’s falter due to lack of proper administrative bodies. “Sometimes the process for the approval for medical benefits takes a few seconds, and certain case it takes about a day” added Warrier.

On an ending note, Warrier said that the younger generation are a lot more aware about the social responsibility. “I avoid using the term corporate social responsibility, because that is not what we are about; it’s a sense of satisfaction that we get from the fact that, we’ve done something for the poor. I use the word Social Responsibilty, and I agree with the fact that social responsibility is becoming corporate in the nature. People are taking it as a certain piece of mind. The younger generation has a certain conscience. The biggest problem in this country is that they do not believe in giving, as compared to other nations. We have a commitment, a passion, and a drive for the purpose, that’s why clowns like me work here. We touch the lives of over a million people a year, and this is what I want people to know” said Warrier.