Tarun Cherukuri of
Vijayawada has been named as one of the Fellows of Obama Foundation for 2019.
Of the 20 Fellows selected this year, 11 are from the United States and Mr.
Cherukuri is among the nine from other nations.
There were too many
aspirants in the race as the Foundation received thousands of applications from
over 160 nations and 780 cities from the United States alone. Mr. Chrukuri,
along with other other Fellows, is a civic innovator working alongside
communities to address the most pressing issues faced by society.
Did he think he
would make the cut? “I was pleasantly surprised to read about my selection.
Though I was hoping for it, I knew that the selectivity rate was 20 among 5000+
applications from across the world. Eventually, I felt a sense of pride for
Indus Action and our team being selected to represent India in the cohort,” he
says over a phone conversation.
Premier project
Co-founder of Indus
Action, which seeks to solve India’s deep-rooted problems by mobilising public
resources and empowering communities through social campaigns, Mr. Cherukuri
designed a premier project called Ekalavya, an initiative to ensure that all
children, irrespective of their caster, economic status, gender or religion,
received quality education. The organisation, under this project, has been
working for implementation of the Clause 12 or the Right to Education Act,
2009. “We have kept our focus on our flagship mission of RTE Sec 12.1.c
unwaveringly for six years, since 2013. This focus and drive to make the policy
successful through an entrepreneurs’ network at national level was one of prime
reasons for our selection,” he says.
He says the project
has directly benefited 90,000 disadvantaged families through RTE in last five
years, especially to the most vulnerable ones like children with special needs
and girls, another aspect that portrayed the strength of his work.
About the
Fellowship, he says it will support “scale our work across the country and help
us reach our goal of 1 million+ RTE admissions.”
Training
The Fellows will
also be trained in leadership and mass communication besides support in
strategising their expansion into other legislated rights like maternity,
pension, health and minimum income.
Pointing to the
fact that both Telugu-speaking States of Andhra Pradesh and Telangana were way
behind in implementation of this crucial legislation, he says he would like to
take this opportunity to urge Chief Ministers of the two states to provide
children their rightful choice of pursuing education.
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