Skilling underserved Youth for Livelihoods

Hello Everyone,

Greetings of the day!!

My name is Nishant, and I work with an IT Centre named Udayan Care Youth Leadership Centre where we provide training in graphic & print design courses to youth from underserved communities. Through this IT Centre, students who are pursuing their graduation through distance learning gets a platform to acquire and equip themselves with job-specific training that would help them to grow and get employed in an organization to sustain their livelihood. This course is specifically designed for the youth (age group of 19-24) to cover structured contents like - Adobe software, soft skills, English communication & financial literacy.

The IT Centre was started in January 2016 and was running smoothly, however since 21^st March 2020 the day when the lockdown was declared across the country, it was a phase where each one of us was struggling to understand how to move forward during this pandemic as no one was prepared for this situation and never could have imagined that everyone would be at their homes and all our training, workshops, and activities came to standstill. During this situation, we all ensured to abide by the rules and help the government to overcome this pandemic. We have tried to implement the concept of work from home as per the availability of resources and reach out to Udayan Care’s employees to give their optimum to achieve their organizational, as well as programme goal.

During this current scenario, we reached out to our beneficiaries with the help of technology and began our training, simultaneously we also connected our beneficiaries with some industry experts and organizations to attend webinars & workshop sessions for their holistic development. Apart from training of our trainees, we decided to dedicate specific hours for the capacity building of our trainers, as we have always been following the TOT module in the IT Centre programme to add quality in our training module as per industry standard and train our trainers to the best. This period of lockdown has helped each one of us to learn new things and update our knowledge & skills.

Our approach through various activities during the COVID 19 pandemic crisis -

Training of trainees - Our project team has put in a lot of effort & hard work to engage beneficiaries in training courses which have been chosen by them. Out of 733 students more than 450 (61%) students are attending online training sessions regularly which were conducted by faculties, the number of daily attendance was short initially but our trainer’s efforts was tremendous where it has reached over and above our target. During the period of COVID-19, IT Training faculties followed the alternate days’ class schedule to cover theory part & practical training session, simultaneous our soft skills faculty have worked hard to make a good base of English grammar and conducted various group discussions, role-plays to open their horizon for making students to speak in English.

Workshops & activities were the core components of our programme which we used to ensure the holistic development of our students, as our target audience is coming from an underserved community where youth have completed their schooling from state government schools and pursuing their graduation through distance learning due to noninvolvement in regular academic, institutional and professional activity these youth’s seemed to be on a path with no horizon, they faced difficulties to hold a common interaction where some of them were not even able to introduce themselves properly.

Our continuous efforts helped us to reach out to the volunteers who have always been ready to support us and be a part of our cause. Volunteers, organizations, donor agencies & corporates have supported us for conducting workshops and expert sessions on specific and relevant topics like - stress management, financial literacy, digital marketing, email writing, etc. These sessions become a big motivation for our beneficiaries which taught them how people can find the right path to make their life smooth in this pandemic and keeping themselves safe from COVID-19.

Financial literacy session by ICICI Foundation - Financial literacy is a core component of our training module which we have been following in IT Centers during the training of trainees, we are really thankful to ICICI Foundation and their staff for volunteering and conducting a wonderful session which they had conducted for our IT Centers students. More than 80 students participated in the session and it was really a learning curve for them. They have learned about Savings and Current accounts in detail, Term and Fixed deposits along with the current rate of interest prevailing in the market.

The session was conducted by Jitender along with one of the retired senior officers from the State Bank of India.  Our students have also learned about different ways to transfer money from one account to another through NEFT, RTGS. They even got familiar with the terms used in banking sectors. Also, with the help of Jitender and the senior officer, our students have gained knowledge on the Insurance sector where they have learned the types of insurance, its categories, and also the importance of going for insurance coverage whether it is life or non-life. The experts have shared and made our students aware of the fraudulent activities related to credit cards (Rupay, Visa, and Master Card) which happen regularly and also shared showed them some videos to give a clear picture on the subject.

World Environment Day 5^th Jun’20

 A day of celebration. It is a day upon which, for about forty years, people across the world have advocated and acted for a healthy environment. From beach clean-ups to mass tree-planting, to marches, individuals, communities, and government have come out to stand together to protect our environment.

This year, we cannot be taken to the beaches, forests, and streets. We had to stay at home, maintaining social distance and mark World Environment Day virtually. Keeping the same in mind, students of our IT Centers took initiative to celebrate world environment day, on this occasion they created some posters and planted trees at their home where they share the pictures on social media pages to spread awareness among other community members to take care of our environment.

At the end we found some miracles of hope during unlock 1.0, our placement team started working actively to find the job opportunities for those beneficiaries who have completed their course, our few students got employed during this pandemic situation when most of the people have lost their jobs, and most of our beneficiaries’ parents were in crisis and some lost their earning source. One of our beneficiary Ram who is putting up with his 2 siblings and parents in a single room accommodation, which is a servant quarter in Sarita Vihar where his father is working as a security guard to meet the family needs. Ram completed his schooling from a government school and is pursuing his graduation (B.com) through distance learning program from Delhi University. Once he met one of his school friends and through him he had an encounter with Udayan Care Computer Learning Centre, and without giving a second thought he decided to join a professional course and upgrading his skills which will help him to support his father financially and also become a responsible citizen.

He got enrolled in the Tally PRO course in mid-February'20 and was found really curious to attend his classes but after a month when the whole country went under lockdown, our center was closed for our beneficiaries. Udayan Care IT Centre Programme has always worked hard in favor of their trainees, finally, it was decided to provide online training to trainees, where it was observed that Ram performed really well during the classes and he ensured to attend all the sessions. His hard work and dedication towards the course helped him to secure a job in a CA firm called "Soban & Associates” with the help of Udayan Care placement cell.

Ram is extremely happy to get this opportunity, during the internship he is also getting Rs. 7000 stipend which is a big help for him to bear his household expense at this present situation. He is earnestly thankful to his trainers and specially Udayan Care for bringing a ray of hope in his life. 

I am really thankful to all the sponsors and associates who have continuously been giving their support to achieve our goal.

About Udayan Care

Udayan Care is a Public Charitable Trust, working for the last 26 years, for the quality care of disadvantaged children and women.

About IT centers programme

Udayan care Information Technology centre tends to brings digital media closer to the underserved society of the people to improve their livelihoods. Currently, we are running 14 IT centers in Delhi, Uttar Pradesh, and Haryana and have impacted the lives of more than 17,354 beneficiaries.

Our centers offer certificates courses in basic computer knowledge, diploma and advanced courses in computer application. Workshops on Spoken English, life skills training and job readiness are also a part of the curriculum.