Microincubation Fellowships
Through our microincubation fellowships Plustrust identifies and supports those with entrepreneurial mindsets.
The fellowship process offers an experience of the various stages in building a micro service venture such as identifying the core purpose, designing the service, and piloting an activity for a clearly defined user group. Through these fellowships we guide our fellows to develop a project idea, provide initial support and seed capital, networking, and contacts relevant for the project and support from their communities to continue the work.
Through our programmes, the fellows build strength in three core areas: Personal Effectiveness, Project Management and Professionalism.
Rural Women Edupreneur Fellowship
The Rural Women Edupreneur (RWE) Fellowship support women changemakers who wish to fill crucial gaps in the education ecosystem to benefit marginalized children in rural and remote locations with poor schooling facilities. Through this fellowship we invite women or group of women with ideas for change in education and who wish to transform the learning processes in their communities.
We identify potential candidates and invite them for a pre-incubation workshop. They spend four or five days sharing their dreams for change, understanding creative approaches to education, and narrowing down the exact service or product they wish to offer to address gaps in the local education scene.
Return to Roots Fellowship
The Return to Roots Fellowship support women who want to pilot service enterprises on aspects like healthcare, skill development, digital inclusion, waste management to improve basic services in their community. R2R fellows run viable service enterprises to fill gaps not serviced by other players (commercial official or charitable). The selected fellows (individuals or small teams) identify and address emerging needs in their context. Plustrust (through our Anchors) offer them mentoring, access to knowledge and resources, and skills development opportunities besides financial support for personal needs.
Changemaker Fellowships
The Changemaker Fellowship encourages enthusiastic youth who wish to work on inclusive education and animal welfare and other related issues and problems that are of concern to them. The fellowship offers them an opportunity to test out their ideas for improving the lives of people around them.
- Get a unique opportunity to test and pilot your ideas for change while improving your self-confidence, managerial skills, and professional calibre.
- Receive mentoring and skill building support during the fellowship period of 6 months
- An opportunity to develop empathy for users and clients, flexibility and openness, financial accountability and Sustainability, Dedication towards work, SMARTER approach to work and networking.
- A fellowship grant of Rs.10,000 per month for 6 months
We start with a workshop to enable applicants to clarify their ideas and come up with a coherent plan for testing out their ideas. By the end of the workshops, participants create the first version of the project and present it for peer review and trustee inputs. After some reflection and consultation with local stakeholders, participants send in a detailed proposal with a monthly action plan. Plustrust then reviews the proposals, visits the applicants to understand their context and finalizes the fellowship details and amount.
Given the diversity within the batch, the fellowship amount and financial support depends upon the need in each case. To bring in more perspective and develop longer term resource support for the fellows, we find mentors who become go- to persons for the fellows as they grow beyond Plustrust. We have often relied on our former fellows to take up mentoring. If anchors are located close by, they can also play the role of mentors
A recently launched programme in collaboration with Bahaar Foundation and Protea with a mission to support and enable public health systems, government, and communities in their endeavour to offer timely, high-quality healthcare by building acadre of ‘last inch’ microservice entrepreneurs, hailing from the neighbourhood and who care deeply about the wellbeing of the households they serve.
Who is a Community Health Entrepreneur?An entrepreneurial rural woman who wishes to improve the health facilities in her neighbourhood.
- She will be the first point of contact for basic medical diagnostics.
- She will receive comprehensive training in using a handheld medical device to provide immediate results of 11 basic diagnostic tests.
- She will be guided through backend support from 2 qualified and experienced MBBS doctors from Portea Medical.
- Receive guidance by the Plustrust team and your Anchor.
- Get a six month financial support for the duration of the programme not exceeding Rs 5000/- per month.
- Develop the following qualities as you work in your community : empathy for users and clients, flexibility and Openness, Financial Accountability and Sustainability, Dedication towards work, SMARTER approach to work, networking under the guidance of your anchor.
The participants for the CHE programme are selected through applications & telephonic interviews, followed by an online orientation session. A training workshop is then conducted by Plustrust and Bahaar foundation, with training support from Portea where participants engage in a 2-day workshop activity, a field visit, and a 2- day training program. After the workshop the CHEs are further trained online or in-person to improve their knowledge in health topics and assessing community healthcare needs through surveys - quantitative and qualitative (FGDs, MGDs) and working as a CHE with atleast 250 families. Following the survey, they will be given training on using testing devices and will be given testing kits to use.
Who can apply? Rural women with a desire to- Test out their ideas in their communities
- Reach out to others and express care and compassion
- Listen to their inner voice
To apply, please click on the application form links given below. You can also submit the form via email or in physical form (by post or courier), photos of handwritten applications through WhatsApp or any other innovative methods you can come up with for submitting the form.
For more details or inquiry write to us on [email protected]