Jagriti Yatra is an initiative of Jagriti Sewa Sansthan, a non-governmental organization that promotes entrepreneurship. The initiative was launched in 2008. In Hindi, Jagriti Yatra means a journey of awakening, and as the name suggests it is a journey of social awakening. Youngsters, between the age group of 20 and 27, from India and overseas can apply to go on the yatra. The journey is for 15 days in which, a distance of 8000 kilometers is covered,They visit 15 Role Models at 12 destination covering The Indian States of Maharashtra, Karnataka, Kerala, Tamil Nadu, Andhra Pradesh, Orissa, Jharkhand, Uttar Pradesh, Delhi, Rajasthan and Gujarat in a train that transports only the yatris or travelers of the Jagriti Yatra. The individuals who go for the journey are supposed to live in the train for the span of 15–18 days and interact with their fellow travelers.
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The Jagriti Yatra has the aim of exposing the Indian Youth to the concept of social entrepreneurship and social progress through enterprise led development.
Introduction
Jagriti Yatra is an annual train journey that takes highly motivated young Indians and a few young people from outside India between the ages of 20 and 27, on a 15- or 18-day national odyssey. A specially hired 18 wagon train takes 450 young men and women (a few of them are student entrepreneurs, a few more are rural entrepreneurs) competitively selected out of a pool of about 40,000 applications, to meet with and learn from exceptional entrepreneurs who are developing innovative solutions to India's challenges. Many of them are unsung heroes, and the Yatra encourages the young to unleash the hero within them.
It has been executed successfully for the past three years in a row, and has established itself as a calendar national event that is a 'must go' for the young people. Through its activities that go on during the entire year, the participants get to participate in the community, and the programs that follow the Yatra including BizGyan Tree, which is a rural incubation camp and Jagriti Conclave, which is a gathering of entrepreneurs and Yatra alumni in a relatively smaller location around a suitable occasion such as the Independence Day of India.
Jagriti Yatra is slowly developing into an eco-system to further the movement of enterprise-led-development among the youth in India. The overall aim is to awaken the spirit of entrepreneurship - both social and economic, in India's youth by exposing them to individuals and institutions that are developing unique solutions to India's challenges. Jagriti Yatra is known to claim that they will inspire young people to lead and develop institutions nationally (or internationally) and within their communities, and solve problems using their own enterprises.
Currently, the alumni body of the Yatra is organized across the nation. The number of alumni has crossed 2000, and is likely to grow by 400 every year.
CA Raj Deshmukh is one of the first yatri from Pune, who completed 2008 Jagriti Yatra.
Enterprise Led Development
Enterprise led development is the process of creating enterprises that will eventually lead to social and economic development through generation of employment and inculcation of a sense of economic security. In this context, the yatra about sensitizing the youth to the socio-economic problem faced by the rural areas of India in order to assure a certain level awareness in them about the entrepreneurial opportunities in these areas. The creation of an inclination in the youth towards the concept of enterprise led development is one of the goals of the programme. The Chairman of Jagriti Sewa Santhan, Shashank Mani, in an article about the yatra, said, "Enterprise Led Development, or Udyam Janit Vikas, seeks to change the development paradigm from one of dependence to that of taking charge. It seeks to shift the mindset of young India from job seekers to job creators. It seeks to shift the role of government from that of a captain to one of the coach and a catalyst." The process of enterprise led development creates scalable improvements in the society and this is through training the most important factor, which is the human capital, and for this the potential entrepreneurs should be intuitive and should have the technique of assessing the opportunities. Many individuals who have not travelled away from home get an opportunity to meet successful entrepreneurs who have made a difference in their societies and the inspiration that they receive in the process is what they take back at the end of the journey. For example, an individual from Uttar Pradesh gets a chance to see the Amul Factory in Gujarat during the journey, and he is inspired to start an economically viable enterprise in his hometown. The foundation for such initiatives is laid down during the process and the travelers or the yatri are expected to build on it through their own interest, perseverance and vision.
Jagriti Sewa Sansthan
The Jagriti Sewa Sansthan was founded in 1985 with the main objective of societal development, based in Deoria. The NGO focuses on participatory development and works mainly towards skill development. It believes that entrepreneurship and skill development go hand-in-hand. The main objective Jagrithi Sewa Sansthan are
By pursuing the above-mentioned objectives, the organization has promoted many activities including community mobilization, working for forest and water-related issues, training men and women for dealing with daily livelihood concerns and training panchayat members to integrate with the local men and women in their activities.
The yatra was an idea initially planned by the Jagriti Sewa Sansthan team in 1997, called Azad Bharat Rail Yatra. It was a journey embarking the 50th year of Independent India. This was the first step towards materializing the idea of inspiring the youth towards enterprise led development of rural India.
In 2007, Swapnil Dixit, then a recent graduate from IIT Kharagpur, added fresh energy into the whole initiative and led Jagriti Yatra as the Executive director until 2012. Under his leadership, the yatra took its current form and became a recurring annual event.