Sanjay Kumar sent us an email yesterday that he has got admission at IHM, Goa… You might be thinking, what’s so special about this news ? Thousands write the IHM admission test and several hundreds get through each year !. Here’s why this news is special.

Sanjay is a ShikshaDaan beneficiary who completed his 12th recently and we have a short video of him sharing his dream of studying hotel management and the importance of continuing one’s education. When Sanjay met Krishnan and me in Feb, he shared this dream with us. I asked him if he had written the IHM entrance and he drew a blank ! He did not know about the government run Institute of hotel management. He was planning on doing the course from Amity hotel management institute which is a privately run college. I had called up Rohit Malik to understand about IHM right away and suggested to Sanjay that he write the entrance exam for the IHM in April.

Here’s the difference in fees … Just the admission fees of Amity is ₹75,000/- which is approximately a semester’s fees at IHM. Sanjay’s father used to work as a security guard in Gurgaon, but went back to his village as he couldn’t make ends meet. So obviously it was impossible for his father to fund the expensive course at Amity and ShikshaDaan’s philosophy is to ensure that a well run government institution is always better. IHMs offer placements and with tourism booming in the country, it’s a fantastic career choice.

ShikshaDaan’s timely intervention ensured that Sanjay was able to choose the right institution to complete his dream of studying hotel management.

Here’s another heart warming story of how mentoring helps. Remember Shiv ? The blog on peer pressure was written on him – Peer pressure – real pressure. Shiv’s mind was made up to go to Kota and get coached for his IIT entrance. The total expenditure at Kota is nearly ₹2.5 Lakhs and our friend Prabhat Aggarwal, who himself is an IIT graduate and runs Aravalli Scholars felt Shiv may not need the Kota coaching. The entrance test results were expected on June 5th and we managed to convince Shiv to wait till the results before going to Kota. Well, the results didn’t come out on June 5th and got postponed to the first week of July. I got a call from Shiv’s father saying Shiv was getting jittery about the fact that the Kota coaching sessions had started and he would be missing nearly a month !!

It took several phone calls to Shiv and his father and even his grandfather to convince him to come and meet Prabhat before taking the decision to join the Kota classes. At one stage I gave this example to his grandfather – “It’s like the patient is deciding that he wants this particular medicine for his illness and I am trying to say, please consult a doctor to first establish what the illness is and then decide on the medicine.” I get the feeling this example got through to Shiv’s grandfather and they came and met Prabhat in person at Gurgaon before going to Kota. Prabhat understood Shiv’s capability and counselled him to go to Kota, stay for a couple of days and evaluate if he still wanted that coaching because Prabhat felt Shiv, was capable of cracking the IIT JEE with his own efforts and some local coaching.

Yesterday Prabhat called us to say, Shiv has decided to stay in Agra and may join NIT for a year and use the time to prepare for his IIT- JEE. Prabhat has already suggested a local coaching centre that can help with his preparation. Prabhat, Krishnan and I are committed to help Shiv crack the IIT JEE because he is genuinely a bright student, but Prabhat’s mentoring has helped him take the right path towards that goal.

All those who have had the gift of education and have benefitted from the exposure of their work experience MUST make the time to mentor young students like Sanjay and Shiv. It’s not just money that’s a constraint for the poor and lower income group families, it’s also lack of exposure. Mentoring helps fill that gap and yes it takes time, but am sure everyone can take a few hours out in a month to mentor.

Thanks Prabhat for helping Shiv.