Influence
Ten fellows a year, each one running at a problem in their own neighbourhood. Climate, air, environment, waste. Pick one, then build something.
What we do
Volunteering and a fellowship, nationwide. Ten thousand volunteers a year, and over 300 youth groups.
The rest of the figures
What it sets out to do
Let the fellow choose the problem
We do not hand out briefs. The person who spends the year on it has to be the person who picked it, because nobody sustains somebody else's outrage for twelve months.
Something standing at the end
A fellowship aims at an object in a street rather than a document in a folder. If a year produces a presentation, it has produced nothing.
Be a switchboard, not a department
The volunteering half works when we are the smallest part of it: somebody with free afternoons, somebody who is short of people, and one introduction.
Leave the groups their own names
The network is trying to make three hundred groups useful to each other. Not one of them is meant to end up with our logo on it.
Not our groups. Theirs.
We introduce them to each other and then get out of the way.
Strategy and activities
A prototype, not a report
The point of a fellowship year is a thing that exists at the end of it — something built in a neighbourhood, small enough for one person to run and specific enough to argue about.
The fellowship
Ten a year, and each fellow takes a community project rather than a desk. The brief is a real problem in a real place: climate, air, environment, waste. Four words that cover most of what is going wrong outside your window.
The volunteering switchboard
Ten thousand volunteers a year, drawn out of fifty colleges and placed with seventy-five partner organisations. It works like a switchboard: young people on one side, organisations that need hands on the other.
CYON
A network of over three hundred youth groups. Not our groups — theirs, connected to each other.
Young people of ours with a banner they painted.
Who it is for
Young people who want a year, not a workshop
The fellowship is for somebody prepared to spend a year on one problem in their own neighbourhood. Ten of them a year.
College students
The volunteering programme draws out of fifty colleges. It works for somebody with a term of free afternoons and no idea where to spend them.
Organisations that are short of hands
Seventy-five partner organisations take the volunteers. This is as much for them as for the volunteer, and they are the half that is easiest to forget.
Youth groups that already exist
Over three hundred of them in the CYON network. They arrived with their own name and their own street; what they get here is each other.
Impact
10
Fellowships
each year
10,000
Volunteers, annually
since 2010
50
Colleges
since 2010
200
Placements
since 2010
Ten a year, on four problems
Ten fellowships every year, each on a community project in climate, air, environment or waste.
Since 2010
Ten thousand volunteers a year, fifty colleges, two hundred placements, seventy-five partner organisations, and a network of over three hundred youth groups.
What it looks like
Influence, from the archive
Get involved
Take our volunteers
Straight to a person
This goes to Vimlendu Jha, Swechha’s Executive Director.
Or write to vimlendu@swechha.in.
Fund this work
Straight to a person
This goes to Vimlendu Jha, Swechha’s Executive Director.
Or write to vimlendu@swechha.in.
There are two doors here and they are different sizes: a year on one problem, or a term of afternoons.
Projects
Bridge the Gap
A module-based curriculum on land, water and air — five to sixteen sessions, plus exposure trips and action projects.
3M+ children and young people reached
Projects
Farm School
A learning lab on five acres. Day visits, short courses, internships and stays.
30 school groups a year
The evidence
The record
Every reading the situation pages are built on, in one place.
Every situation, side by side