Livelihood

One of the biggest challenges for a country like India, with over a billion people, is employment generation. This is true, especially, for youth from the underprivileged community who lack basic education, because they drop out from school at the elementary level. The percentage of unqualified and unemployed youth from poor families residing in slums and in villages in India is fairly high. Unqualified and unemployed youth lack exposure and skills that are required for them to be employed. United Way of Bengaluru with its local partners has been constantly exploring means, to train and provide jobs to these unqualified youth. The objective is to mainstream and encourage this segment to join the productive workforce of the country.

United Way of Bengaluru has partnered with Unnati to provide vocational training to 125 underprivileged youth. As a result youth who were disoriented and had lost their meaning in life now have a purpose and have been encouraged to shape their lives.

125 youth from economically deprived sections of our community were selected as beneficiaries. Out of these 125 youth, 33 were girls. The intent of the project was to make these underprivileged youth from economically backward communities ‘employable’, thereby facilitating them to join the main stream. United Way Bengaluru, chose Unnati, which provides vocational training to youth from underprivileged communities. The training offered includes life skills, spoken English, computer skills, value education and communication skills in addition to the core vocation chosen. The program provided an assurance of a job with reputed companies at the end of the 70 days training.

Training sessions

Chosen youth were assigned to different vocations based on their educational back ground and potential. For e.g., youth who are graduates are assigned to low end BPO vocation, those who have completed 12th are assigned to retail sales. For all other vocations, there is no minimum academic qualification required. Therefore they are assigned according to their choice / attributes.

Decent catering and training provided to the beneficiaries

During the last week of training, a campus placement was organized during which employers visited the Unnati premises and recruited the youth. Offer letters are handed out after the job interviews. At the end of the week, the youth directly join the respective company. All 125 youth have been placed.