During the second wave of the COVID pandemic, that occurred in April 2021, India witnessed a huge loss of middle- aged people. The official figures showed that over 4 Lakh people lost their lives and millions of other families lost their livelihoods due to COVID restrictions and a slowing economy. 

This led to an unprecedented crisis situation in India of COVID orphans. Further thousands of students who had either lost their parents or suffered job losses were on the verge of dropping out of formal education because of the financial problems they were facing.

To help these students, Buddy4Study, India's largest scholarship platform that connects scholarship and education loan providers, started a special scholarship programme so that the affected students can be financially supported. It raised Covid Crisis Scholarship funds from donors, especially CSR bodies from various corporations to help & provide hope to these distressed students to continue their education. 

Through the special scholarship programme for COVID-affected students, more than 12000 students received timely financial support for their education. For its impactful work, Buddy4Study received an award in the Education category at the 8th CSR Impact Awards, India CSR Summit. This is Asia’s largest CSR Forum hosted by CSRBOX and Dalmia Bharat Foundation.

Outreach and mobilization

Buddy4Study first opened a platform for affected students to apply for financial assistance. 

The organization says, “As we started getting valid applications, we approached a host of corporate partners to help such students through their CSR funds.”

With more and more corporates joining hands, Buddy4Study designed and launched many COVID Crisis Support programmes pages on their platform as per the specific programme requirements and objectives of the funding organizations/CSR partners. 

Thereafter, outreach and mobilizations were done through online and offline media channels. The shortlisting of candidates was done based on the need and severity of their crisis. All the due diligence was put in place for document checking to verify applications. Post that, the telephonic interactions were done with students to create a final list of candidates (as per the fund availability). 

The students were awarded scholarships with direct transfer of the money into their respective bank accounts. Because of the digital intervention, the program scaled very quickly with a record number of applications for various COVID Crisis Support Scholarship programmes.

Innovative approach and impact 

Before designing the project, policy experts were consulted and the team assessed the need of such projects. Government data for the COVID deaths were collected to gauge and analyze the problems. A few school authorities were consulted to understand the effect of the COVID-led crisis on their students. 

Women continuing education.

The organization says, “We engaged with our existing CSR partners to understand their participation in such a project. Further, we reached out to more than 5,000 schools across India to spread information about the scholarship programme which intended to support students suffering from the crisis.” 

Buddy4Study worked on a technology to launch scholarship programmes within 48 hours of approval from funding partners. To spread the news about the scholarships, the team partnered with more than 350 media outlets including print, radio, online platforms and 100+ YouTube influencers. 

The organization received more than 5 lakh applications and including close to 2 lakh applications for their global application named COVID Crisis Support (Jyoti Prakash) Scholarship programme. 

The organization says, “We were also able to disburse close to Rs 49 Cr of scholarship amount under different scholarship programmes.” More than 12000 students have been supported with scholarships and many of these students are going to get the support in the future. 

This has not only helped these beneficiaries to continue their studies but also boosted their confidence to bounce back from the crisis they faced. The successful implementation of the project has also brought the message that the CSR community in India is highly supportive towards any cause/social problems that need immediate intervention.