Students consider working for NGOs over MNCs?
On World NGO Day (February 27), students from the colleges of Delhi University share how their own experiences shaped their lives and made them turn down internship offers at well-known firms in lieu of working with non-profit organisations to pave the way for a better tomorrow.
Giving it back to the society where we live holds utmost significance for a lot of youngsters. Today, on World NGO Day, some Delhi University students and alumna share how they have given up their career prospects in multinational corporations (MNCs) to be able to serve the masses.
Diya Goswami, a final-year Sociology (Hons) student at Hindu College, shares: “I am interning at an NGO to manage their human resource department as pro bono work. I want to work in the social and development sector, and want to one day directly impact policy-making.” Like most students, Goswami also had ideas about working at an MNC to boost her CV, but changed her mind after she started volunteering at the NGO, saying, “I am seeing real life-struggles that I would have been completely blind to, had I opted for an internship at an MNC like I had thought of doing back in my first year. When I saw the work being done for these children, I decided to dedicate my entire time and effort here.”
Varsha Panwar, a final-year Hindi (Hons) at Mata Sundri College, is powered by her own life experiences, informing: “I don’t come from a privileged background, maine khud gareebi dekhi hai. I have the fortune of studying at a premiere college, and I want to give back to the society that helped me.” Panwar reveals she got the opportunity to intern at a media company in the summer of last year, but turned it down to volunteer at an NGO with her friend, sharing, “They organise classes for students who otherwise would have been begging or wasting their lives on the streets. Main khud bebas ho sakti thi, working with such children makes me feel like I can be like the teachers who inspired me and, years down the line, someone else will take that inspiration from me and give back to the community like I am trying to right now.”
Sangeeta Kumari, a final-year BA (Prog) at DU’s School of Open Learning (SOL), adds, “The entire point of open learning is to have enough time to build your professional standing. In my first year, I hustled my way into interning at big companies and had a litany of stints in my CV. But then I fell upon an NGO that changed my way of looking at women’s issues. I met a woman who was separated from her husband because he was an abusive alcoholic. It is nothing new, but it is her reality. I was a part of the team that helped her. No big deal for a corporation can make me feel like I have done something impactful like sitting with her did.”
Some graduates of DU have gone a step further and made their careers in social work. “Me and my elder sister were raised by our single mother as we lost my father when I was very young,” says Aanya Wig, an alumna of Lady Shri Ram College, who runs an NGO that works with underprivileged women. “The idea behind starting a youth collective for me was to help others see women as leaders, the way I have seen. When I graduated in 2021, I founded a new NGO, which was born from my previous venture during my college days. We work continuously towards raising awareness about menstrual hygiene and financial and legal literacy for women. I am proud to say that all the volunteers at my NGO are students from schools and colleges, with at least 80% of the force being from DU.”
Author tweets @KritiKambiri