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Skill Development

Smile works as a Livelihood NGO too

When founded by a group of friends in 2002, who would have given a thought that Smile Foundation would help over 56,500 youth from backward communities across the country to get job opportunities in various sectors. We have collaborated with various industrial giants to ensure that job opportunities reach the marginalised.  

Founded with a vision to bring comprehensive and sustainable changes in the lives of the underserved, Smile Foundation has evolved as a livelihood NGO over a period of time. Their constant work towards enhancing the economic well-being and socio-economic status of people through various interventions has helped them to attain the title. This evolution has taken place in addition to their immense contribution in the fields of education, health and women empowerment. What sets the foundation apart is their integrated approach, which focuses on long-term upliftment strategies.  

What is the youth lacking to get jobs?

If one is well-aware of the country’s demographic dividend window, expected to last until the mid-2050s, they will know that breaking the cycle of inequality is not a cake walk. To connect the unemployed youth and the job providers, one needs to conduct studies at grass-roots levels and understand the missing pieces. The missing piece here is the lack of requisite qualifications and adequate training.

To bridge the gap, we mobilise the community to understand their willingness and then enrols them in the training courses of their choice of our livelihood initiative STeP (Smile Twin e-Learning Programme). Post-training, which lasts about four to six months, provides them with hands-on training to prepare them for workplace challenges and career guidance. Our role just doesn’t end there. We believe in going the last mile to give back to society by tying up with numerous companies and offering placement support. In most cases, we also provide post-placement support.

Our phenomenal partnerships steering our efforts

The livelihood initiative of Smile Foundation has over 74 skilling centers and has conducted over 800 career counseling and industry exposure sessions. Partnering with more than 400 giants from various industries, including the insurance, banking, and hospital sectors. Some of their employment partners are ICICI Lombard, BLK Super Specialty Hospital, HDFC Financial Services, HDFC Life, Venkateshwar Hospital, Fortis Hospital, and Apollo Pharmacy, we focus on driving down the unemployment rates in the country too.

Not just that, we have also partnered with several industry experts, including the Wadhwani Foundation, the NIIT Foundation and Tata Strive, to provide effective upskilling and vocational training. With the knowledge and resources they have acquired from their partners, the livelihood NGO has been constantly upgrading its curriculum in core employability skills, banking, financial services and insurance (BFSI), and digital marketing. 

The partnership is indeed valuable to the trainees. For, it helps them understand the industry requirements and equip themselves with the skills in demand. Through such collaborations, we have facilitated job placements for trained candidates in companies like Quess Corp., Better Place and Teamlease. The foundation has trained over 90,000 youths till date, of whom over 56,500 have acquired job offers.

For instance, the livelihood NGO joined hands with Berger Paints in 2021 to support one of their upskilled training programmes – iTrain on Wheels – that is aimed at enhancing the skills of painters. In the year 2023, about 94,333 painters were trained at over 100 remote sites in 24 states through 19 iTrain vans. The programme not only concentrates on bestowing emerging painters with contemporary painting techniques but also focuses on existing painters to increase their employment opportunities.

Not just that, we have also collaborated with Amazon to create 21st century learning labs. The labs come in handy while providing hands-on training to trainees.

Recent skilling partnerships – Our work as a livelihood NGO

Our collaboration with the charitable wing of the Flipkart Group – the Flipkart Foundation – in 2023 will ensure that the trainees of Smile Twin e-Learning Programme (STeP) centers in Bengaluru will get adequate industry-oriented employability skills.

The foundation has also been empowering women to become skilled and financially independent through their women empowerment programme – Swabhiman. Under this programme, we provide entrepreneurship and skill development training to help women understand and implement the financial management, marketing and communication techniques required to scale up their businesses. Over 1000 women and adolescent girls were trained as change agents and about 54 women-led businesses and small enterprises were set up.

Transformation of women into decision-makers

The success stories that constantly emerge from the livelihood programmes of the foundation are testimonies to our impact on the ground. For instance, take the story of a young mother, Yashoda, from Karnataka. Her once-peaceful life turned bitter during the COVID-19 pandemic when her husband lost his job. Determined to fight the odds, she joined the NGO’s entrepreneur development training programme. Today, she, along with like-minded women from her community, has become a businesswoman who produces handmade organic cosmetics like kajal, bathing powder and tooth powder, among others. Now, she is not just financially stable but also wants to expand her business.

The story of Ritu is not very different. Caught in the vicious circle of poverty, Ritu’s life had become even more miserable when her father lost his job during the pandemic. Though she desired to study further, her family situation did not allow it. But she did not let her world end there. She had taken up core employability training under the STeP programme, she is now working at a retail clothing chain in New Delhi with expertise in fast fashion, including clothing, accessories and shoes.

The stories just don’t end here. For, the livelihood NGO has been pulling all the strings to create a visible and long-term impact on the livelihood of many more in the years to come. We invite corporates to join us in our skilling mission and provide training to the youth so that India becomes more than a progressive nation.

Mail us at: [email protected]

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Livelihood

Livelihood Skill Training Programme For Employment

Earning a respectable livelihood is a basic need of every individual and household. To make a living, it is also important to possess necessary skills that make one employable. For a large number of people, the livelihood skill training programme does this work. It helps people in learning the appropriate skill and then finding a source of livelihood based on that.

Now, livelihood skills or vocational skills can be anything like sewing, carpentry, plumbing, and much more. Having these skills prepares one to find employment opportunities as a skilled worker. The skilled worker also earns more than an unskilled worker which makes livelihood training extremely important.

The importance of livelihood training can also be judged from the fact that it also includes life skills. Management skills, entrepreneurial skills, financial literacy, and technical skills can all be a part of livelihood training.

What is the importance of Skill Development?

As we understand, livelihood skill training prepares individuals for jobs that pay them decent wages. This, in itself, makes skill development important. Less than 47% of the 5 million students who graduate each year in India find jobs, according to the Associated Chambers of Commerce and Industry of India (ASSOCHAM), and only 20% of them are employable. Each year, more than 12 million young people with a variety of educational backgrounds are introduced to the market for job seekers.

These young job seekers are entering a market which may not have enough opportunities for them. Especially, in the post-covid era, the economic slowdown has impacted job creation. In fact, major companies are laying-off their employees because of the negative growth. 

Most of the data available to us is related to the formal sector. It is estimated that 90% of workers in India are still employed in the informal sector. Data of the job losses in the informal sector is not available to us. However, it can be assumed that the problem is equally severe for the informal workers too.

According to some estimates, up to one-third of people of working age in developing nations lack the fundamental skills needed to properly govern themselves, their households, and to make a living. This is why the importance of skill development in India is readily acknowledged. Skill development helps a large workforce to find and create work opportunities for themselves.

Livelihood Skill Development Schemes

A number of organisations work in the skill development area in India and around the world. According to research done by the National Sample Survey Office, in 2018 India’s unemployment rate reached a 45-year high of 6.1%.

India enjoys a special demographic advantage because more than 60% of the population is under 25. But employability needs to be raised if we want to benefit from having such a huge labour population. According to recent data, just 10% of recent graduates are employable, and the other 90% do not possess the necessary abilities to be considered for corporate employment.

The Indian government also understands the importance of skill development for the growth of the country. This is the reason why the government of India has taken various initiatives related to this and have launched livelihood skill development schemes.

The Govt of India Skill Development Programme aids in raising awareness of the initiative’s goals and helps people comprehend its prospectus. As part of the Skill India Mission, the government is implementing several skill-development programmes across the country through 20 central ministries and departments. 

These include the National Apprenticeship Promotion Scheme (NAPS), Jan Shikshan Sansthan (JSS), Pradhan Mantri Kaushal Vikas Yojana (PMKVY), and Craftsmen Training Scheme (CTS).

According to the India Skills Report 2021, only 45.9% of young people will be regarded as employable. Comparatively, about 46.2% of people were considered employable in 2020 and 47.4% in 2019. This shows that the initiatives taken by government and NGOs have had an impact to a certain extent.

Rajeev Chandrashekher, Minister of State for Skill Development, also said that the government had received more than 368 crores in the National Skill Development Fund (NSDF) in five years from 2017 to 2022. The minister added that more than 101 crores out of this was received as corporate social responsibility contribution.

Employment Opportunities and Beyond

According to a Nasscom-Zinnov research, India will have a 14–19 lakh professional shortfall in the IT sector by 2026. India needs 52 lakh more IT workers than the 46 lakh that are now employed there. This is just one example that shows various industries in India may require higher people than available.

One reason for this is that technical and other education in India does not focus on skilling. Anyone graduating with a degree may not find a job. But a skilled learner with a degree has higher chances of being employable. As India works towards leveraging its demographic dividend and creating opportunities, it is important that focus is given to skilling.

This is the reason the government has also launched the National Institutional Ranking Framework which also focuses extensively on how the institutes are working on skilling their students. NITI AYOG also has a Skill Development and Employment Division which is aimed towards “building and sharing knowledge for accelerating policy initiatives for making Indian youth and workforce employable” and “identifying as well as offering solutions to critical issues concerning employment, jobs and livelihood creation”.

In order to develop policy/program initiatives and reforms connected to skill development, apprenticeships, and employment challenges, the Division collaborates with the Ministry of Skill Development and Entrepreneurship (MSDE) and the Ministry of Labour and Employment (MoLE). In order to progress research geared toward having an impact on policy and programme activities, the Division also works with a variety of research organisations, development partners, and specialists.

Thus, we can see that there is a strong link between livelihood skill development programme and preparing people for employment. This is why the importance of skill development is realized by the government, CSRs and NGOs. As we move forward, we must continue to focus in this area to make our growing population of young Indians capable of finding meaningful work.

Smile Foundation and Livelihood

Smile Foundation through its livelihood initiative, STeP in its efforts towards a more employed nation, is training & up-skilling the Indian youth between the age of 18-32 years to make them able enough to secure a livelihood.

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