Varun Shrivastava

Varun was born in an agricultural family in small village Shahjahanpur of Jhansi District,UP.[8]  He started his schooling from a primary school in his village and later moved to Chirgaon, to complete his secondary school education from Saraswati Vidya Mandir, Chirgaon.[5]

His mother, a homemaker, was a lady rich of values. He says that values and morals that were imparted to him as a child helped him become what he is today.[9] Shrivastava was deeply moved by the predicament of children begging at traffic signals. Eventually, this moment of pathos gave him the impetus to start a movement that envisions equitable education for every child.[10]

Shrivastava is very diligent on the professional front as well. While pursuing his graduation from IIT Kharagpur as Electrical Engineer, he interned as a Research Trainee at Telephonica(R&D) in Madrid, Spain for 3 months.[1] Apart from this, he had been an active participant in various clubs and committees in college. He also pursued his passion of teaching in his college town. He would religiously visit Gopali Asharm to teach children every evening.

NTPC Limited

After graduating from college, he joined NTPC , Mouda as an Executive Engineer. At present he is the Senior Manager (PP & M), NTPC Noida Headquarters.[11]

UPAY(Under Privileged Advancement by Youth) NGO

UPAY is the culmination of Shrivastva vision, that one day every child will go to school and no one will be seen begging on the streets and signals.[8]

The foundation of organization was laid in 2010 by Shrivastava and two of his friends in a small village, Kumbhari near Nagpur, Maharastra. Prioneering the concept of “footpathshala” he came to be known as  “A Man turning Footpaths into Schools”.[12][10] The campaign which started from a small village has successfully reached all over India.[6]

Efforts made by Varun and his team have led to commendable achievements. They have reached over 2000 beneficiaries with a network of around 300 volunteers who are tirelessly working towards realising the vision of “Education of All”. Shrivastava has been an inspiration for these young professionals coming forward to teach underprivileged children.[13]

Times of India referred to him as a Big Brother to street kids. He has been considered among the top 10 ordinary Indians[14][10] doing extraordinary things by Lokmat Samachar and many other social media groups.[15][10] He has inspired hundreds of youth from different backgrounds like doctors, engineers, college students, and teachers to take up the street children's cause and give them a motto of Reach & Teach underprivileged children.[16][10] He is trying to replace begging bowls in the hands of street children with books.[17]

Including Shrivastava, all the volunteers are working professionals who contribute after their office commitments. He got deeply hurt by the condition of poor street children by seeing them every day begging at traffic signals. He decided to bring these left-behind children into the mainstream with the powerful tool of education.[18] He started one of the unique initiative called Footpathshala[14] for the street children in October 2015. It's an open school that runs at footpaths and provides basic education to street children.[11]

Shrivastava and his team are working for achieving the dream that "one day will come when not a single child will sleep hungry at footpaths when every child will get ready in the morning to go to school not to some dhaba or restaurant for cleaning the utensils, not to some traffic signals for begging and not to some street for picking up the rags".[19]

He has started to get recognition for his work and many volunteers got inspired by him and they joined his movement.[18] Now Footpathshaala is running in Nagpur, Pune, Gurugram, Delhi, Noida, Bangalore, and Mouda. Hundreds of poor children are getting a basic education and then 30% of them got enrolled in schools.[20][21]

1. Jiyo dil Se award season IV by 94.3 my FM.[22]

2.Quest For excellence 2013[23] by Power HR forum.[24]

3. Maitri Gaurav Award[25] 2016.[26]

4.Samaj Bhusan Award by bahuuddesiye Saskratik Mandal Nagpur.

5.Central India Achiever Award by GPS Global PAORAMA Showcase.[21]

6. Young Achiever Award by Sangani Foundation.

7. Manviyata Puruskar by NTPC Mouda

8. LOKMATA SAMAJIK SANSTHA PURASKAR by LOKMATA SUMATITAI SMRUTI PRATISHTHAN.[8]

9. Samaj Sevi Award by Vidarbha Jyeshth Nagrik Mahamandal.

10. NGO Excellence Award by World CSR Day.

11. Young Alumni Achiever's Award by IIT Kharagpur (August 2018)

12. Global Nagpur Award 2018 in the field of Social venture by Nagpur First.