Working for something bigger than ourselves.

Being a part of People & Culture entails me answering questions like “Why work in a philanthropic organization?" and “What motivates you to work”.? More often than not, I quote Ralph Waldo Emerson - “The purpose of life is not to be happy. It is to be useful, to be honorable, to be compassionate, to have it make some difference that you lived and lived well.”

You can choose any organization, but why this industry? To answer that I’ll share a story of how Steve Jobs lured the president of Pepsi. Jobs won him over with a simple, pointed question: “Do you want to sell sugar water for the rest of your life or do you want to come with me and change the world?” The same ideology applies to all philanthropic organizations. You can spend the rest of your life just relegated to the zone of someone who’s doing the bare minimum, or you can be the guiding beacon of light in the lives of thousands of people who’ll remember you forever. You wouldn’t just be a person changing some students’ lives, you’ll be a part of breaking the cycle of generational poverty.

Giving back to society

Each individual is involuntarily bound to their peers or society at large via a social contract. This is something that comes as a result of we being a highly social species - having co-dependences that we may not even realize. To fulfill our end of the contract, we donate to charity or even become completely philanthropic. However, these means aren’t always accessible to people. Working with us amalgamates two essential spheres of life - career, and moral duty to give back to society. Helping hundreds of underprivileged bright students in unlocking their academic potential, and gaining access to a much better life is what we employees value most about their jobs.

Well, I spoke to the students enrolled with us and got a ubiquitous response from all - “we want to study hard enough to earn and uplift our community”. The hardships faced by these children give them a sense of responsibility, an inner voice that pushes them to help their families break through the shackles of poverty. This is more than enough to empower our employees to give these students the best education possible.

Growth and innovation

Organizations like these, you wouldn’t face a lack of growth opportunities. As is the case with most smaller organizations, you will learn and adapt to new skills at a much faster pace due to every employee having a sense of ownership within the organization. This also imbibes stronger inter-departmental cohesion for employees. You could be a teacher who might have a solution for an operational glitch, you could be a city coordinator who would propagate students’ academic concerns to the academics team - the possibilities are virtually endless. It is just about a belief in keeping an open door for communication at all levels, from all roles.

Volunteering has been proved to improve happiness and reduce depression, according to research. Finding meaning by giving back to society doesn’t just benefit others - It benefits ourselves.

Altering the world with education is what we believe in Sitare. Yet not everybody has access to a good education, especially not the underprivileged. With the world playing heads or tails with the future of these children, our story is simple. We begin by holding the hand of the most talented students in middle school and leaving them with a job after a professional degree. It is our ambition, yet increasingly achievable mission - to transform fifty thousand lives through education by 2050.