Skilling underserved Youth for Livelihoods

Greetings of the day to all,

Hello everyone, my name is Meghali, and I work as an IT Trainer at Udayan Care's Vinod Nagar IT Centre in (East Delhi, India). It's been 2 years since I joined the organization, but my journey with Udayan Care began 2.5 years ago when I enrolled in the Accounts Exe (Tally Prime) course. During the training, I volunteered to manage the classes in the absence of the trainer, and I found that I enjoy teaching. After the completion of my course training, I asked Vikas sir (Centre Coordinator - Vinod Nagar) if there were any vacancies in Udayan Care that I would like to join; fortunately, I was able to join the same centre as an IT Trainer. Since my appointment, I have been part of many workshops, activities, capacity-building trainings, events, etc., which really help me to groom myself to add quality to my work. Recently, I got a chance to be a part of a four-members committee that was formulated to organize the activities in Udayan Care’s all IT Centre on the occasion of World Menstrual Hygiene Day 2023. After a detailed discussion, we decided to run a campaign across all IT centres to empower the girls to manage their menstruation cycle safely, hygienically, and confidently without feeling any kind of shame. As per UNICEF’s statement, "Every month, 1.8 billion people across the world menstruate. Millions of these girls, women, transgender men, and non-binary people are unable to manage their menstrual cycle in a dignified, healthy way".

To keep in mind the day-to-day observations, we helped to the IT Centres team to plan various activities with the help of internal as well as external resource persons, NGOs, hospitals, etc. More than 600 girls across all IT centres attended the specific sessions, which were designed to elaborate on the use of menstrual hygiene kits, do’s and don’ts during the menstrual cycle, how to keep ourselves and society aware to break this taboo, why we need to avoid myths about menstruation, etc. Apart from the session, we also introduce the menstrual hygiene box in our centre, where our female students can access the sanitary pads during an emergency. We are thankful to Ms. Nikita from Parivar Seva Sansthan Stree Clinic (Lajpat Nagar), Ms. Geetika and Mr. Vivek from Mission Lal Rang (Rewari, Haryana), Dr. Anamika (Gynecologist, B.D. Pandey Hospital, Nainital), and Dr. Pushpa (Sat Krishna Charitable Hospital) who spared their time to educate the Udayan Care’s IT Centre youth. These activities were uploaded on social media, which was really appreciated by the followers. A few days ago, I visited the head office for my video shoot required by Udayan Care’s communication team to upload on social media handles. When I met with Kahkkashan Ma’am (Head of communication team), she congratulated me with a shaking hand for the successful inauguration of Udayan Care’s 20th IT Centre in New Kondli (East Delhi, India) and 21st IT Centre in Jogeshwari (Mumbai, India). Both centres are well designed project to provide training to the underserved community youth who fall between age 18 to 24, pursuing or complete their graduation through distance learning, and looking for a platform where they can be associate with the short term skill development training which helps them to grab an entry level job opportunity in growing sector for sustaining their livelihood, The centre inauguration ceremony is a well-planned event with the cutting of ribbons and the lighting of the lamp ceremony. At the same time, our guests interacted with the newly enrolled students to collect their feedback for the facilities and method of training. Though I did not attend both events but saw glimpses on social media, while I was scrolling the images, I also saw the success story creative that was pasted in our New Kondli IT Centre. In the creative, we have covered the story of Manisha, who completed the IT course from our Dundahera (Gurugram, Haryana) IT Centre. She beautifully shared her experience since she decided to move into the metro city with the purpose of starting a job to help her father. His earnings are small, but she found him an ambitious person who wants to make his daughters financially independent. She travelled alone from the small village in Ayodhya to Gurugram, where she started doing a temporary job in a factory to survive in the city. After a few months, she got connected with the Udayan Care Computer Learning Centre (Dundahera, Gurugram). The centre helped her to be equipped with the command of MS Office tools and enabled her to get placed at "Interface Microsystem" in Gurugram as a Data Entry Operator with a salary of 15000 Rs. Per month. She is feeling blessed to be independent, and now she has also called her younger sister here, who is in the process of learning to build a career in the growing IT sector.

About Udayan Care

Udayan Care is a Public Charitable Trust, working for the last 29 years, for the quality care of disadvantaged children and women.

About IT centres 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 21 IT centres in Delhi, Uttar Pradesh and Haryana and have impacted the lives of more than 24,306 beneficiaries.

Our centres 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.