India has the largest number of youth living in extreme poverty in the world. Street Kids International's (SKI) Street Source program addresses this issue by providing employment and life skills training to slum youth in Pune, India. Upon graduation, youth are guaranteed a job with one of the participating businesses.
Despite Pune’s rapid economic growth, its slums have increased 176% in 20 years accommodating 560,000 citizens living in slums unable to find jobs with decent wages. Though IT and BPO companies are creating many new jobs, companies are reluctant to hire slum youth or people living in poverty. By training and providing guaranteed job placement for slum youth, this project will be the first step towards breaking this pattern by providing a sustainable solution to Pune’s extreme income disparity.
A three way partnership between SKI, Project Concern International (as implementers) and private sector companies (as employers and mentors) exists to meet the employment gap of local companies, while employing slum youth. SKI provides interactive and participatory training programs geared to the capabilities of slum youth with low to no numeracy skills. Upon graduation, youth have guaranteed employment with participating companies, along with peer mentors to help them transition out of poverty.
This project will provide street youths with training and jobs with starting salaries of 3,500 rupees/mo. (79USD), doubling their family incomes and allowing them to climb out of poverty. Upon attaining jobs with our employers, the graduates contribute a portion of their income to fund training for other Street Source youths. This not only allows our grads to feel responsible and empowered by paying for their education, but allows the project to be financially self-sustainable within 5 years.
This project has provided additional documentation in a PDF file (projdoc.pdf).
