Skill Development and Livelihood
In line with the Government of India’s Pradhan Mantri Kaushal Vikas Yojana, skill development was identified by Shriram Foundation as a major focus area for furthering its vision of empowering youth and women. The foundation tied up with different training organisations to sponsor courses with large employment potential.
Beneficiaries of Skill Development and Livelihood Program 2015-2018
Partnership with Rise India (2015-16)
Under this partnership Shriram Foundation identified road transport, retail and hospitality sectors which were fast growing and offered large number of opportunities for youth. Rise India mobilised and oriented youth from different geographies and enrolled them for job-oriented courses. The courses offered were driver training (Heavy Transport Vehicle, Light Motor Vehicle, Fork-lift operator), customer support executive (for retail industry), housekeeping and food and beverage service (for hospitality industry). The trainees received inputs in soft skills, spoken English and communication, health, safety, yoga, financial planning and computer operation apart from the core job-related skills. Job fairs were conducted and candidates were placed with transport operators, hotels and retail chains. The placement record was satisfactory at over 50%.
Driver training program
Retail and Hospitality program
Partnership with Pratham Education Foundation (2016-17)
The skilling and livelihood program of SF focused on 2 sectors in the year 2016-17. Hospitality received continued support because of good placement track record. To give a thrust to women’s empowerment, a training program for bed-side attendants was launched. In all 2000 candidates were trained under the partnership with Pratham. Hospitality trainees were placed with 3 and 4 star hotels. Bed-side attendants were recruited by hospitals and nursing homes and also by Home Nursing Placement agencies like Portea. The placement record was extremely encouraging at over 90% for Hospitality and over 70% for Bed-side attendant programs.
Bed-side attendant program
Hospitality program
Skill development programs for 2017-18
The program was expanded with the inclusion of two new trades, Two-wheeler Technician, targeted at youth who have completed Class VIII, and Commercial Tailoring, a women empowerment program.
The Two-wheeler technician program was run by our training partners, Pratham and IL&FS Skills in four states – Maharashtra and Madhya Pradesh by Pratham and Uttar Pradesh and Telengana by IL&FS Skills. The programs were fairly successful with a placement record of over 70%.
The commercial tailoring program was run in Vijayawada, Andhra Pradesh in association with Vasavya Mahila Mandali. Women and girls underwent a 3 month training program in cutting and tailoring. 2 batches additionally benefited from the free Fashion Technology module offered by Samana Institute of Fashion Technology, Vijayawada. Many of them are self-employed supplementing the family income with their earnings from tailoring.
The Hospitality (Housekeeping and Food and Beverage Service) and Healthcare (Bed-side Attendant) programs also continued to do well with placement record of over 90%.
During 2017-18, a total of 2454 youth have been trained across four trades, taking the total number since the inception of the program in 2015, to over 7,700.
