Fast Forward India 4.18

Fast Forward India (FFI) is a unique effort by IIT(ISM) students to find creative and powerful ways to tackle problems that impact the lives of millions of undeserved people in India.
There are hundreds of millions of people in India who are deprived of basic needs. We, as a country are capable of designing solutions to meet these needs. Right now such solutions are being designed by a small number of ministers and bureaucrats in the government. The youth has the power and capability to design new solutions to the problems that are a roadblock to our development. FFI provides an opportunity to the college students in the country to try to work on one of these problems side by side with their studies. Such an experience will, apart from potentially producing great ideas, sensitize the youth to the needs of their disadvantaged countrymen and provide a creative outlet for their energies. The teams' solutions have to focus on three key criteria: sustainability, impact and scalability. Sustainability implies finding a way to self-sustain the project financially/resourcewise, as well as creating an organization or movement that sustains over years and grows in size and impact. Solutions must be designed so that they scale; they must be able to impact a large percentage of the disadvantaged population in India, since the overarching aim of FFI is to Fast Forward India's pace of development so that the millions of undeserved people can get to lead a normal life as soon as possible.To meet the vision we are currently running four projects namely:

BLOODLINE
Bloodline was started sighting the lack of awareness among people regarding the importance of blood donation. It was a major challenge since the situation was further hampered by the low literacy rate and the backward economy of this region. One simple reason for this was the basic understanding that excessive loss of blood can cause death. The demand of blood exceeds the available preserved blood mostly due to lack of voluntary donations owing to little awareness and misconceptions about safe blood donations. Our aim is to spread awareness about voluntary blood donations and to encourage people towards doing it regularly. In India, the annual collection of blood is only 5.5-6 million units against the requirement of about 8.5 million units. It is sad that if only 3% of India's eligible population regularly donates their blood, there will be no shortage of blood and its components in blood banks. This would mean that a significant number of deaths could be avoided if people donate blood regularly and voluntarily so that safe blood is always available. But the main reason behind this sadistic situation is the unawareness, myths and misconceptions that are still obsessing the minds of Indian people even in the 21st Century.

DISHA
What should I choose as a viable career option? How do I prepare myself for it? What all subjects do I need to study? What’s the degree I need to acquire? Which is the best college I could enroll into for this? These questions are what a student faces while preparing for further studies and we people, at Disha, tackle and solve, for students in schools of Dhanbad, Jharkhand. These students have a very little knowledge regarding viable career options. We aim to bring down this lack of information by making them aware of the various career fields there are, which are suitable for them and how they can pursue them by providing them the necessary information like about nearby colleges, fee structure, entrance exams, etc. DISHA volunteers organize counseling sessions in schools and make the students aware of the aspects of careers. The volunteers are trained by the experienced volunteers. The volunteers are also benefited along with the students as they get the opportunity to fulfill their social responsibilities towards the society, along with enhancement of their skills.

ESCAPE
The importance of English in the current generation is unparalleled. While it is indispensable in the urban scenario, English seems to be steadily spreading its roots into the rural areas as well. For a leading developing nation, it is important that the generations to come are well equipped with knowledge of the language, and are capable of facing the everyday challenges of modern society. Fast Forward India aims at strengthening the roots of our nation. ESCAPE is an extension of the same. ESCAPE, English Speaking Course And Personality Enhancement, aims at spreading not just knowledge of the language but also communication skills and overall personality enhancement to those with limited resources. It aim at providing a platform for building confidence, encouraging creativity and developing skills which help them in various real world situations.

JAGRITI
In today’s competitive world, it is not the fittest who survives, but it is the one who is most adaptive to change. Life today has become so fast that we are dependent on machines for most of our work. Computers have penetrated our lives so deep that to achieve professional success in any field, crossing paths with computer education has become indispensable. In a country like India where most people are deprived of basic necessities for life, computer education for these underprivileged children is a distant dream. Keeping the current scenario in mind, Jagriti was proposed as a part of Fast Forward India to impart basic computer education free of cost to the underprivileged children in and around Dhanbad. Jagriti started its functioning in 2008 and since then has been actively involved in achieving its goals and fulfilling this cause. We are trying to empower them with basic computer education needs so that they can withstand with the students who study in good private schools and prove their positions in the society.

Kindly visit fastforwardindia.org for details.