Skills Development in a developing country like India is as important if not more than academic education. Possessing Skills (Expertise) is the key to ensuring that one is able to get employment or even self-employing oneself.
Developing and harnessing expertise or skills in a developing country like India is as important if not more than academic education. The Goal of our Skills Development Program is to equip under privileged girls with skills they can leverage to avail employment opportunities and strive for women empowerment.
Girls from economically weaker or marginalized backgrounds are deprived of access to skills building programs because of financial constraints, shortfalls in the education system, inaccessible learning platforms, gender inequality, and primeval social belief systems.
- Financial Constraints – Almost 22% of the population in India is below its official poverty line limiting access to paid skills building opportunities.
- Shortfalls in the education system – India has only 2% of the workforce skilled compared with over 40% in countries like China, USA and Germany due to lack of inclusion of skills training in the formal Indian education system.
- Inaccessible learning platforms – According to Internet and Mobile Association of India, only 3% of rural Indians are connected to the Internet. This culminates in lack access to online content, paid learning opportunities and programs run in urban areas.
- Gender Inequality – Girls from economically weaker backgrounds grow up experiencing discrimination in access to learning opportunities and economic resources. According to the 2015 World Bank report, female to male ratio of lower secondary education completion rate is 84%.
- Social Beliefs – In a family with meagre resources, boys are prioritized in reaping additional learning opportunities because educated women are assumed to be less sought for in a marriage setting.
Our Skills Development Program ensures paid skills building opportunities, access to nutritious food and good healthcare in a safe and progressive environment. We take pride in having a direct relationship with these girls and their parents to ensure that we are not only providing them financial support but also acting as their guardians providing them career and other guidance.
Sneha Karma Foundation rolled out the Skills Development program in 2017 and expect to finalize the first location of the academy in 2018. Our initial plan is to form strategic partnerships with some of the existing Skills Development Institutes to meet the vocational skills building needs of the girls enrolled through ‘Support-A-Girl’ program. Sneha Karma Foundation will offer ‘Scholarship Program’ to eligible girls in the foundation. We will also partner with various companies with employment needs by providing relevant training to the girls in the foundation who are interested to work with these companies.
We currently have 12 girls enrolled of whom two will be graduating in 2019. We are very cautious about enrolling more girls, we want to ensure that we are truly able to make an impact in wherever we are investing the hard-earned money of our donors and the time of our volunteers.
Our Mission is to transition more and more girls from our Support-A-Girl program to the Skills Development program, by equipping them with the skills required to become independent and self-empowered. We need help and support of donors, volunteers and supporters like you who can help us accomplish our mission.
Initially, our plan is to form strategic partnership with some of the existing Skills Development Institutes to meet the immediate needs for the girls in the ‘Support-A-Girl’ program for gaining the vocational skills. Sneha Karma Foundation will offer ‘Scholarship Program’ to some of the girls in the ‘Support-A-Girl’ program to enroll themselves in these skills development training programs.
Sneha Karma Foundation will also work in parallel to form strategic partnership with various companies and have an understanding with them, that they will provide an opportunity to the girls from the ‘Support-A-Girl’ program to interview for position requiring the skills that these girls have trained in. Sneha Karma Foundation will also be open to getting the girls from the ‘Support-A-Girl’ program to get trained at the training institute of the employer’s choice. For Example – ‘Reliance Jio’ would like to get their potential recruits to be trained at a training institute, then Sneha Karma Foundation would be open to consider that as an option for training the girls in the ‘Support-A-Girl’ program who have an interest in working for ‘Reliance Jio’.
As of Oct 2017, we are in very early stages of designing this program. We are looking to build a team of volunteers who can help design and implement a pilot program. We expect the first location of the academy to be finalized by end of 2018. We expect the first girl from the ‘Support-A-Girl program to be part of this program in Jan 2019.