Global Philanthropic Report 2019 - SECT, VKF & Go2C

Background
As per the All India Survey of Higher Education in 2015-16, the gross enrolment of young people
in India at the graduate level is about 24.5%. While there could be many reasons that lead to this
number, one of them is that young people in India do not have access to education facilities nor
the ability to pay for a good higher education.
There are many young adults who upon graduating from 10th and 12th Standards desire to
become seafarers and join the merchant marine sector but do not have the opportunity and the
resources to do so. They may find themselves in tough financial conditions that may limit their
potential to pursue their dreams. This reality was noticed by an employee at Synergy Maritime
who noticed their household help’s inability to pay for the education of one of their children. This
resulted into a wider appreciation of this need and then culminated into the organisation
stepping up to be a part of the solution.
In response, we helped turn an idea co-created by the Deputy Director General (DDG) - Shipping
in India into reality. Based on the DDGs thoughts, some of our friends and colleagues organized
a Job fair for mariners at Lakshadweep based on. The job fair included several marine firms that
came to provide suitable opportunities to young people at Lakshadweep and helped bridge the
lack of jobs in the local economy.
Further as SECT, we initiated a Scholarship program for underprivileged students at the Synergy
Marine group, also known as the SECT Scholarships.
SECT Scholarships
The SECT Scholarships seek to fulfil the aspirations of some of these students by helping fund
their education through an interest-free loan. The initiative has been conceived and initiated with
the first edition that has just completed for the year 2018-19. In this program, bright young
women and men are reviewed and selected for a scholarship to study trades in the maritime
realm. The evaluation of the candidates was based on their academic performance and
assessment of their need. For this year, SECT has paid the fees to train five candidates to become
ratings or officers. An amount ranging from 3-5 Lakhs was earmarked for each of these
candidates.
The candidates for this have been selected from various parts of the country with the active
involvement of Synergy Marine Group recruitment vertical and other credible non-profit
institutions. The DG (Shipping)’s office also sent recommendations as inputs to the selection
process. If an external perspective was required, provisions were made to be able to have the
candidate vetted by other non-profit partners.
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