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Social Media has become an integral part of our lives, be it for individuals, corporates or the government. From entertainment to information, the power of social media was on display during the last two years of the pandemic when people were confined to their homes. Harnessing the power of social media, Vidhi Palsapure – a professor at Dayanand Science College, Latur in Maharashtra, decided to use it to help youngsters find career and job opportunities. Vidhi founded Mazha Career Guide, an online platform and community for the students and by the students where she provided the necessary career guidance and shared information and admission related updates and job openings.
Journey
Social Media is most commonly used for entertainment and networking, but taking a step ahead, Vidhi used it to build a community of students. Latur is a largely rural, drought-prone and economically ignored area of Maharashtra where facilities and options for career guidance are limited. Especially new and emerging fields in science, research and development such as biotechnology, bioinformatics, bioengineering etc, are virtually unknown to the poor and underprivileged students from this region. To address this problem, Vidhi decided to use social media to empower students and youngsters to build successful and bright careers.
Her journey started when she got an opportunity to do internships at the institutions like IIT BOMBAY and NCMR, Pune. At these institutes, she learnt about new and upcoming fields in the domain of science and decided to share this information with her friends and peers back in Latur as well. This is where the idea of the Mazha Career Guide took birth. To ensure that she was able to reach the largest possible audience, Vidhi decided to start a Facebook page called Mazha Career Guide – i.e., My Career Guide. On this page, she started sharing regular news and updates about New and Emerging Career Options and how students can build a successful career around them.
Mazha Career Guide for Students
What started as a Facebook Page soon transformed into something big and thus was born Mazha Career Guide Foundation. The foundation works as an online platform for the students and by the students, where they can share and get targeted information about career guidance and selection of the right career options and streams. The team at Mazha Career Guide Foundation is working to bridge the gap between the need and the interests of the career selection process. They are all aiming at uplifting the interests and passion for emerging career fields among the student community.
Click Here to Reach Mazha Career Guide Facebook Page
Click Here to Reach Mazha Career Guide Website
Activities and Initiatives By Mazha Career Guide
As part of the Mazha Career Guide, Vidhi is working to build educational awareness among students and provide a virtual career guidance tool that can also offer employment-related information. In addition to this, the Mazha Career Guide Foundation is also trying to focus on ensuring the holistic development of students of the region by holding virtual personality development seminars, communication skills workshops and soft skills training programmes. At Mazha Career Guide, Vidhi encourages the student community to choose customized careers, follow their passion and explore emerging opportunities. Recently, the foundation has also started one to one career counselling sessions, providing information related to internships and projects, connecting the students with the respective companies and providing them accurate and timely information about the same.
Impact of Mazha Career Guide
Mazha Career Guide has had a positive impact on the student community. The platform has provided youngsters with an avenue to get their career-related queries addressed. Students from rural backgrounds and girls are now gaining information about emerging fields like Microbiology, biotechnology, physics and relevant employments in this sector.
Vidhi is now focusing on developing Mazha Career Guide as a platform where career guidance and selection is student-centric, student-friendly and student-led. This also helps to ensure good mental health and keeps students away from anxiety and depression. Giving equal importance to all career options can also reduce the load from the conventional career courses and provide students with more options to choose from.
Click Here to Reach Mazha Career Guide YouTube Channel with Student Testimonials
In future, Vidhi plans to connect dots from various areas of expertise, coordinating with governmental and non-governmental organizations, collaborating with similar NGOs, institutions, and civil society to upscale this process and the concept of customized career choices. She also plans to carry out career-related symposiums, programs, specific workshops and create a one-stop solution for the youth to come up, speak up which will help them in personality development by inculcating and encouraging oratory, drafting and other such activities to create future leaders, entrepreneurs, scientists etc.
Vidhi Subhash Palsapure is a finalist for Best Initiative (Using Social Media) Because... she was able to harness the power of social media to develop a student-centric platform to provide career guidance and information about employment opportunities. Due to her efforts, students from poor and marginalized sections have been able to explore and adopt new career avenues find the right internship opportunities and take benefit of various government schemes and financial assistance programmes for students.
To Reach the Information Dossier Shared by Vidhi Subhash Palsapure Click Here.