Employability Programme for youth in slums

Objective: To impart skills training & employment to vulnerable youth

Activity 1: Enrolment

• A road show team has been trained and oriented that mobilises students throughout the year for all centres.
• The road show team works closely with faculty to mobilise students for each centre.
• In Rajasthan we have a mini bus (Mobile Van). We use it for mobilization & for training in interior villages where no so such facilities are available.
• Mobilized the youth & gave them training in village. We have 4 computers, some tools for two wheeler repairing & electrician courses.
•  Mobilisation is also done by converting walk-ins into enrolments at the centres.
•  This year 5499 enrolments were done. 

Activity 2: Faculty Training and Meetings

• Through AIF faculty received training on issues related to disability and on making the classroom more inclusive.
• Another training provided was a program orientation – The training was done for all faculty members because most of the faculty were new to the program and organisation.
• Regular meetings were held with the core team and faculty to discuss issues of quality and target every quarter.

Activity 3: Guest Lecture

• Guest lectures were taken on health care, additional information on computers and internet, disability and sensitization, life skills, motivational aspects etc. 

Activity 4: Centre Visits/Quality  Checks

• The core team carried out timely, routine visits to different centres and worked closely with the centre coordinators and Faculty also.

Activity 5: Job Fair

• As a part to reach out to more youth in the city who did not require training but were looking for jobs, 5 job fairs were conducted in Ahmedabad (2), Kadi, Vadodara, and Jaipur. The total placed candidates are 3796.
• There is a training post placement at the job place on life skills, work readiness.
• The placement is only considered when the student starts going to the workplace

Activity 6: Placement

• Campus Placement:There are more than 5 companies that participated in campus placement at our centres in Ahmedabad. The overall success ratio of campus placement is greater than 60%.
• Direct Placement: Mnay youth were looking for jobs and had previously undergone training. We began referring them to companies and followed it up with trainings.

Activity 7: Post Placement

• For a period of 6 months each student is tracked via a phone call.

Challenges Faced

• Changes in Govt. Policy regarding Umeed and Udaan Program
• Process of setting up a Centre through ULBs- long, tedious
• Cash flow from government partner
• Tracking beyond phone calls not yet done

Best Practices

• Best Centre Award & Best Enrolment
  • The Odhav Centre was awarded the Best Enrolment award for its consistent performance in quality enrolments at the centre. It has maintained a batch size of 90-120 over the year and continues to do so.
  • The Meghaninagar center was found to be most consistent in all aspects of training, enrolment, placement and achievement of targets. Therefore it was awarded for the best centre.
  • These centres were also found to be amongst the best performing centres by the study conducted by the IRMA students that had come through AIF.
  • The reward and recognition initiative was to give faculty and centres a boost and motivate them to achieve targets with quality
• Less attrition ratio in HR
  • In the past year the attrition rate has gone down to 21 % from 52%. The strategy of creating a core team has helped successfully create a support system to help ease the burden of faculty and ensure that they can focus on quality at the centre.
• Create Retention System
  • Retention and tracking have been serious concerns in the past. Our earlier strategy was to have track students at the centre level, however this was adding to the faculty’s burden and the poor quality of data was coming from centres. In order to streamline this process and improve tracking, a back office set up was created. Two young girls from our training batch were employed to do the call tracking. They make about 300 calls per day and are given a script from which they make the calls and fill in the data. Please find attached the analysis of our system.  
    • Data Compilation
    • Monthly calls
    • Analysis
    • Feedback to Placement Cell
• Core Team         
  • Core team includes 6 members; Enrolment Manager, HR & Disability Manager, Placement & Post Placement Manager, MIS Manager, Training Manager and Liasoning Manager. After the formation of core team responsibility is divided among the members. Hence, work has been done qualitative and effectively.

Impact on Stakeholder’s

• Youth
  • Quality placements: Through a system of profiling, students are offered jobs that they show a keen interest in and skill for. This has successfully led to approximately 20% students staying on in their first jobs for at least the 6 months of tracking. Almost 30% of the students move jobs after the first month. These jobs are sought out by themselves and makes for a positive trend, showing that the students have confidence to move to a better paying position or looking for jobs on their own.
  • Tracking System: The tracking of students has helped keep a link between the students and the organisation, through this system it has been easier to communicate with those who have either not been placed or are looking for better jobs and following up with them.
  • Students across centres have expressed an increase in their self-confidence and comfort with the formal system to work, appear for interview and seek out jobs.
  • There has been an increase in the number of youth with disability who are aware of the program and approach centres directly either looking for training or placements, depending on their experience.
  • The highest paid salary was Rs. 8,000 to a student who was trained in BPO and in the job fairs Rs. 7,200 was the highest paid salary
• Family and Community
  • Due to regular community mobilisation and visits to families many families in the area have become more aware of the various opportunities for youth and are encouraging their children to join the courses.
  • Employer
    • In the past year due to a dedicated placement cell and job fairs the YUVA MAST brand is becoming more recognised by employers as a credible platform to reach trained students or youth who are in need of a job with the basic minimum criteria for entry level jobs.  
    • Government
      • The program with the government and AIF has undergone a lot of streamlining and Saath has achieved and gone beyond the target set out for the year 2011-12. 
      • Currently Saath has been requested by multiple nagarpalikas to restart the Umeed program across Gujarat. This has been taken under advisement. 

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