Our Story

Dream… dream… dream… dreams transform into thoughts and thoughts result in action.
– APJ Abdul Kalam

It was 2010, one of our founder members was at a village school. A notebook distribution program had been organised for the school children by a trust her family ran. The children, dressed in bright costumes and wearing happy smiles, presented songs, dance and drama with great enthusiasm. It was a small school of only two teachers and about 100 children, located in a remote area of Karnataka. Chatting with the children later, she asked them about their futures. What would they like to be? Almost all of them said teachers! A few boys mentioned policemen. That was it. No child expressed any other aspiration – not even farming, although it was the primary occupation in the village.
Wouldn’t you have been surprised?
She was.
She wondered, why did the children have such limited thoughts regarding their future? These were bright children, eager to learn and quick to grasp ideas. Had they never met any professionals apart from teachers and policemen? Or did they love their teachers so much? Had nobody spoken to them of any other career choices?
As she pondered their lack of exposure to the world of occupations, a strong idea took hold in her mind that the right knowledge and information shared at the right time might help expand their choices and allow them to explore and use their talents more suitably.

The universe was on her side – within a short time she met two other people who went on to setup DreamPath Foundation with her.
One was an experienced psychologist, whose passion was positive mental health.
The second person she shared her thoughts with also came quickly on board. Being an avid researcher, she was ready to pitch in and do her bit for the mission.

As is common knowledge, adolescence is a period of tremendous change on all fronts – physiological, mental and emotional. Simultaneously, it is also a time when important life choices must be made. There is confusion, anger, conflict, loss of confidence and motivation, etc. It is a phase of life where one is vulnerable to mental distress as well as to bad life choices, especially if there is no guidance. In turn, this impacts not just the young adults but also their families and society at large.
The reasons for making unsuitable or wrong career / education choices are many – peer pressure, parental pressure, peer pressure among parents, biases, myths, lack of self awareness, lack of self-expression, lack of self confidence, lack of information, lack of resources, etc. It is important for children to recognise their abilities, strengths, and interests, as well as be armed with correct and relevant knowledge about career choices. Then they can make informed decisions about their education and career.

The founding team thought of creating an organisation which employed preventive strategies in the area of career choice and adolescent mental health. They would work with high school and college students, providing suitable interventions in career guidance and life skills, especially for the under-privileged or under-served. All three founder members were driven by the same impetus of wanting to do something for society, given that they had already had a successful professional innings.

Co-incidentally, all three also had children going through adolescent phase and they had to make their career choices as well as choose appropriate education options. They had already done the much of the homework in exploring career and education options. They had also undergone career guidance counselling with renowned organisations at considerable expense.
So on the one hand it was important that career awareness and guidance reach the under-privileged at minimal or no cost and at the same time, all children whether privileged or not definitely needed interventions at the right time.

Thus, the intent was to share knowledge with all children. Charity begins at home, and the first career awareness and guidance workshop was conducted at the Alma Mater of one of the founders in March 2013. The program was well received and was probably the first of its kind at that particular school. A lot of questions were raised by the students and teachers with regard to careers and education options.

This modest start soon progressed to well structured workshops with holistic content which enabled children to make informed career choices irrespective of how well they performed academically. The idea was also to give guidance to school dropouts or those who didn’t clear examinations. The goal was to show a feasible ‘dream path’ to every child irrespective of their background.
The core team grew quickly from 3 to 8 and began conducting frequent workshops in and around Bangalore touching almost 2000 students within 18 months.
Today, the team comprises like minded people who are talented individuals from various sectors coming together to do their bit for society.

DreamPath became a public charitable trust in 2015 and the band of volunteers continues to grow, doing their bit to ensure all youth get a chance to utilise their potential and contribute to a better society!