Giving wings to their dreams

Well-equiped: Students discussing a career chart.

Exhibition of a career chart in a school.

Our aimlessly wandering souls will have to find a purpose and direction in choosing the best-suited stream to pursue our education. Haven’t we wondered “What next?” after our Class 10 and 12 results? We also seek advice regarding which career is best suited to our interest.

While some private schools offer career counselling to their students, government schools generally don’t have access to this facility. Some civil society organisations are working towards bridging this gap by working with such schools.

DreamPath Foundation is one such initiative that mentors high school, pre-university and UG students and empowers them to make informed decisions about their career choices. One such school where DreamPath works is Kethamaranahalli Government School in Bengaluru. After three years of exposure to various activities, the shy sophomores who did not dare to speak, showed remarkable changes in study and life skills with better clarity of thought and confidence.

Career guidance

The Bengaluru-based NGO has been conducting career guidance workshops called Career Tree since 2013. For better reach, more than 130 workshops at schools and colleges across the state have been conducted till date in Kannada and English, by collaborating with various other organisations.

Through these workshops, DreamPath has reached out to around 13,000 students.

This year, the foundation has leveraged cloud-based technology to offer free career guidance to PU students. Using the app ipomo OnBimba, students can explore different education and career options.

Krupa R Chakravarthy of DreamPath says, “We provide Aarohan, a booklet that has a list of possible career options in a variety of streams. While children are open to ideas, it is not easy to convince parents who go by popular choice. Their perception of scope is also conventional.” So they conduct sessions for parents to address their concerns.

DreamPath is also coming together of enthusiasts with different professional backgrounds. Shilpa Pandit, Pratibha Rao and Krupa Chakravarthy are the founding members and they now have about 20 people in the core team helping with materials for workshops and attending to online queries.

A parent says, “I do not know much about the outside world, because I never went to school. We have very less income in the family and when my child wanted to take up an unconventional course, I was anxious. Having sessions with DreamPath helped me know that interests and perspectives change and that every stream has good scope provided the student is interested in it.”

They prepare materials and plan activities based on the demographics. They target schools and colleges that lack access to such guidance and most of them are government-run institutions.

Understanding each student’s interest and aptitude is the first step in guiding them. It starts with helping students explore all possible careers, appreciate skills required and resolve myths. Later they have activities like tower building, group discussion and scenario activity. This also builds confidence in them to step forward and analyse their own skills and seek guidance. They can also refer to Arohan booklet that has comprehensive information on career choices.

Carving their own paths

They guide students with different subject interests to National Institute of Open Schooling. Lavanya, a student, says “They have been receptive of what inputs or feedback we give and have helped us build a strong foundation.”

“We wish to create an informed collaborative ecosystem among students, parents and educational institutions that influence decision-making and career choices of adolescents and youth. We are working on providing better resource information. We also want to create interactive videos and realistic job preview for students to understand the various professions clearly,” says Krupa. They are also planning to extend their activities to remote areas in the state. =

This largely women empowered organisation can be reached through a toll-free helpline, Siddhi, 1800-100-7470 from 5 to 8 pm everyday for career queries. For more details about the organisation, log on to www.dreampathfoundation.com or email at [e-mail].