The SBI Youth for India Fellowship, one of the nation's leading fellowships for the youth, focused on rural development, proudly inaugurated the latest batch for its 2021 - '22 cohort. Having only recently celebrated 10 years of the Fellowship, in offering India's youth an opportunity to work on rural development projects across India, often in some of the remotest parts of the nation - in close partnership with leading NGO partners. The orientation event, conducted at Seva Mandir's Kaya Centre in Udaipur, features an eight-day series of events and activities commencing on the 6th of August and concludes on the 13th of August.

International cricketing icon, Mr. Yuvraj Singh, joined the orientation's opening ceremony and inspired the fellows, "Each one of you is a custodian of our great nation, and I want you to give your best at all times.

Welcoming the fellows, and leading the lamp-lighting ceremony, SBI Foundation's MD & CEO, Smt. Manjula Kalyanasundaram spoke to the growing appeal amongst the youth for the program, "This year, we had 80,000 plus applications. So, you can tell yourself that you are one among the chosen few. We had a very rigorous selection process, and we went through three or four stages."

Janat Shah, President of Seva Mandir, "If we want real progress, we will have to find a meaningful way to engage with the community. Especially if we're going to talk about solving problems in rural India. We need people who work with local communities to come up with interesting, innovative ideas. And that's where, you know, people like you play a very important role. You come with a fresh mind with curiosity and look at they're hard problems which surely makes a difference. And, in the process, discover yourself, as I said, in Seva Mandir, we believe in community,if you're going to solve some of these problems, the communities, working with community, dealing with people, with dignity, with strong values as a foundation which has been around for 50 years."