Last week was historic. I wrote a curtain raiser in my column on the 29th of July. I was in Mumbai for two days to witness 20 young graduates from different cities in India taking small steps to enter the Public Relations profession by being the fourth batch of SCoRe (School of Communications & Reputation) – the only post graduate training academy in the world built by and for PR professionals. In one moment the last four years flashed in front of me and most importantly a dozen names who have offered to support us unconditionally also came up. And so here we are all set to embark together with these young men and women who hail from towns such as Tezpur and Golaghat, Jhansi and Konnagar, Nagpur and Hazaribagh, Patna and Chennai. Besides, five from Mumbai, four from Kolkata and three from Indore. To assist their progress in the course of ten months we have over a half dozen friends of SCoRe. We have couple of people who have come forward to sponsor needy candidates. Then we have Shreya Krishnan through a mix of remote and in-person interventions will guide them on community service, Hina Huria will help the students get a glance of 100 award winning Indian campaigns, Anubhuti Mathur will hand hold them to help them create better written content, Priyanka Mathanelia will ensure their research skills are the best in the business.
We had Madan Bahal deliver the opening lecture. It couldn’t get bigger than that. He left them with a thought-provoking set of ideas about life.
The students will get to hob-nob with the who’s who of the Indian PR community and a handful of global leaders at PRAXIS, again this is possible because of the generous support of partners. They will work across four departments at PRAXIS – Front Office, Content Management, Social Media and Logistical Support.
Hemant Gaule will unveil the Deans List at the end of the year where three toppers will get to travel to three different global conferences in 2020 with all-expenses paid by couple of Foundations. These are unique offerings at a Public Relations school. Next academic year, the intent is to open a centre in the National Capital Region if we can get atleast 15 students to sign up. We know the challenges this venture has. But patience and perseverance we have in abundance.
We also hope to introduce Day Zero and couple of subsequent days for PR firms who wish to hire from the school in the first week of March. Where we will have a minimum threshold of annual salaries that maybe offered to meritorious students.
All this will become possible only with the support of the many men and women who have raised their hand to come forward. It indeed takes a village and yes it takes a while. I’m excited because I see a bright future in these aspiring professionals.
He is also the Founding Dean of the School of Communications & Reputation (SCoRe).
He can be reached at @amithpr on twitter.
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