The abbreviation TESI stands for Talent Education Foundation International. As an association of responsible citizens who are committed to helping people who need our support beyond the borders of Germany. The focus of our work is placed on vocational training services available for adolescents and young adults. Due to personal enthusiasm for the country, people and culture, the regional focus of engagement is on India.

Vocational training is the key to fighting poverty in developing and emerging countries. The main work objective of TESI is therefore to actively reduce poverty through career counseling and vocational programs.

In the Indian state of Telangana (Andhra Pradesh at that time) we promoted our first TESI partner schools where we opened new opportunities to disadvantaged students through additional courses. Since 2014, we have been able to gradually establish ourselves in the western part of India, in Pune (Maharashtra). In addition to the city of Mumbai, especially Pune has been gaining in importance as a center of the automotive and IT industries and becoming increasingly important for international, including German companies – ideal conditions for TESI.

We opened our first own training center for vocational training in the commercial sector under the name "Parineeti" early 2015 at this promising location. There, youths from needy families experienced the unique opportunity to learn comprehensive education and individual support. Modern, interactive and hands-on learning is reserved to the middle and upper classes in the commercialized and rigid education system of India. We at TESI are convinced that intelligence and talent do not depend on the financial status of the family and must be promoted as much as possible. We therefore strive for unrestricted access to education and the promotion of talented students with limited financial resources.

Our target group has a special advantage: They are – as we call it – street smart. The majority of the students had already been confronted with serious, sometimes existential problems at a young age and were able to overcome only through creativity, improvisation and hard work. We want to ensure that also these young adults regain a piece of hope, take a valuable job and thus be able to participate in social life. Through our offer, they should be put into the position of sustainably earning their own living. Vocational training creates a future for those who otherwise would not have had a future.

We thus stand for social responsibility and fight for a better life through education. The basis for this is a motivated team of project managers, teachers, social workers and volunteers who are specifically trained and are therefore able to care even more purposefully for their protégés. Our team is always available for students and maintains close contact with the young people and their families. The center remains a meeting point even after completion of the course – the result is an active network of students and alumni who gradually become mentors.