Originally published at http://www.milaap.org/blog/meet-our-new-idex-fellow-priyanka-bhille
Meet our new IDEX Fellow: Priyanka Bhille!
After our previous IDEX Fellows, Thomas and Mary completed their internship successfully with us, it was time to get a new fellow who was equally enthusiastic and passionate about making a difference. Priyanka is our new IDEX fellow who is working on various important projects like loan management, deployment and closely associated with our vocational training/school project field partners. We had a small chat with her to know more about herself and this is what she had to say:
Q) Tell us about yourself and your prior experience before joining Milaap
Working as a socially responsible person reaching people to enhance and enrich their lives has been on the top of my to-do lists ever since my childhood. I have always been passionate of education. It has transformed my life in several ways. I am also passionate of working to promote the other basic needs of life, namely access to affordable healthcare, good environment, integrity and harmony, and general well being in life. In the little time that I have spent on these areas, I have taken little steps to support these dreams.
During my college days, I was actively involved in the volunteering activities including community engagement programs, social awareness programs, cleanliness drives, role plays on social causes, etc. For all the initiatives and efforts in these directions, I was awarded as the best “NSS Volunteer”. I joined the corporate world with a clear objective of working for a couple of years, get to know more about how the world functions, get to know people and processes, get to understand education’s impact in practice, and then move on to work at social enterprises. The decision to move on from the new found happiness in investment banking to pursuing a dream that was dreamt long back was tough.
However, as I continued to participate in several CSR activities during my working life, the motivation remained. I spent almost all my weekends at NGOs, especially helping children learn, recording classes for them, making their small wishes come true and other similar activities. I kick started my social entrepreneurship journey with the Jagriti Yatra 2012, the train journey of 15 days that takes select youth across the nation to inspire them to build enterprises that make a difference.After the Yatra, I volunteered at Youth for Seva (YFS) and then, joined them as an Intern to work on a NGO Connect Project.
Q)What was your motivation for joining Milaap?
My social entrepreneurship journey began with the Jagriti Yatra 2012. I wanted to know the ground realities of the social sector as well as get a brief understanding of lives of people across the nation. Jagriti Yatra gave me move than brief understanding as I interacted with numerous change makers who had so much to tell. Microfinance is one such field that has caught my attention. It has the power to create an impact on families instantly by helping them create a revenue stream. With this passion I happened to be a part of Milaap who is impacting millions of life by helping them fulfill their dreams and to live a life with dignity.
Q)And how did you hear about our organization?
Very recently, my application for the IDEX Fellowship in Social Enterprise was accepted. I wanted to work in the field of Micro finance and accordingly, IDEX placed me with Milaap, India’s first online micro-lending platform. With Milaap, I’m working on several areas including deployment, loan management, new delivery channels, etc. with a focus on upbringing people to attain a better living through education, sanitation, small business financing, etc. There are several plans underway and I’m certain to make the best of them in the coming days.
Q)What is your expectation from Milaap?
I want to be a part of an organization that will work towards making life a better experience. I want to see a world with happy minds and humble hearts. Milaap is one such serious opportunity for me as I look forward on a journey to create positive impact, an exposure with a platform like Milaap will cut down my gestation period significantly and help me focus on doing things more effectively and efficiently leading to better results. A launch pad like this will do a great deal in taking life forward in the longer run as well as help me run longer.