Saksham 3 – Livelihood support initiative for youth from disadvantaged communities in India SUMMARY 
India is one of the youngest nations in the world and only 2,3% of India’s total workforce has undergone formal skills trainings. Although there are job opportunities, young people often are not in education, employment and/or trainings. Saksham III follows the Saksham project launched in 2010 which supported disadvantaged youth (18-35 year) especially young women (60%) in India, to enable them to realise their dreams by equipping them with essential life and market oriented vocational skills. In this project - Saksham III - 2,500 young people (18 –29 years, 60% women) from disadvantaged communities in Delhi, Uttarakhand and Uttar Pradesh will be enrolled in job-oriented vocational training enabling young people to access decent employment. Additionally the project will train 750 youths (18 –35 years -60% women) in entrepreneurship, enabling them to become self-employed. The project is implemented by Plan International India. It started in July 2017 and will end in July 2020. India is supposed to be the youngest nation in the world by 2020 with a population of 74 million of  young people in age group of 15 to 24 years.  Various reports suggest that there are not enough opportunities for market oriented skills training to fulfil the expectations of all the young women and men after they complete their basic school education. On the other hand only 2.3% of India’s total workforce has undergone formal skill training. Although there are job opportunities, these jobs are at the cusp of formal and non-formal, therefore there are not often undertaken. Consequently, the number of young people who are not in education, employment and trainings (NEET) is gradually increasing. And the irony is that in the urban space exists huge demand for skilled personnel from the emerging markets, which remains unfulfilled.

Analysts believe that the gap between the high demand from the market for skilled employees and fewer number of skilled youth to be employed on these jobs can be attributed primarily to the current delivery model for skill development in India - through vocational training centres set up either by government, NGOs or private businesses. This existing model presents the challenge not to be able to  scale up in next few years to fulfil the rapidly growing demand for skilling.

Under renewed priorities of government, there is strong thrust by government on fostering entrepreneurship and skill development. Skill mission focus of provide conducive skill development ecosystem across country to help young people acquire employable skills. However due to focus on input based learning rather outcome driven education, employability among the youth is very poor. As per industry estimates only 30% of such graduates are employable. The overall objective of the project is that young people from disadvantaged youth living in urban and rural areas have gained market oriented vocational employment and entrepreneurship skills to be economically empowered.  The project will use the following key strategies:

•	Job Oriented Vocational Training (JOVT): This refers to all processes undertaken in project to provide youth access to job oriented vocational training with formal jobs.
•	Vocational Training Entrepreneurship Promotion (VTEP). This refers to all processes and trainings undertaken to provide women and men access to vocational training for entrepreneurship promotion (VTEP) interchangeably referred as self-employment. Self-employment is precursor to entrepreneurship. The second strategy is about providing entrepreneurship training to youth. Youth, after training, get self-employed first and move towards becoming entrepreneurs thereafter.
•	Decent Employment: Youth will be provided employment in decent jobs. This focusses on enabling environment, employee rights, social security and freedom of expression for youth.

The implementation of these strategies will consider: 

•	Labour market study to identify potential training trades and employment opportunities
•	Awareness generation and youth and community mobilisation.
•	Vocational training for employment and entrepreneurship promotion which includes screening & selection, self-assessment (project work, project files etc.), training content based assessment).
•	Training delivery with life skill, computers, workplace communication and financial literacy.
•	On-the-job training Apprenticeship and internships
•	Job-placement and self-employment 
•	Follow-up with youth to provide post set-up/ placement support to ensure retention.
•	Gender Mainstreaming will be the key principle and guiding strategy across all work undertaken. The project until date has focussed on developing the project based on the market/job oriented vocational training pathways. Project adopted a three-party model wherein field (NGO partners responsible to youth mobilisation and follow-up) and training partners (training partners responsible for training and placement) were engaged for mobilisation and training processes respectively, Plan engaged with 6 local level grassroots organizations as field partners and 3 training partners. The thrust remained on mobilisation of youth, making community and youth aware about new market employment opportunities, and establish community based vocational training centres. Increasing the training opportunities for girls was one of the key component that is why work around gender sensitization was integrated in the project.  

Later the project included vocational training for entrepreneurship promotion pathways as one of approaches. New targets areas were included, new partnerships were forged. Components of financial literacy were also included in the project. The trainings included skill and entrepreneurship development training that provide the scope for the youth to set-up self-employment units on viable trades and businesses. This phase also marked development of various crucial documents for process standardisation on gender mainstreaming, job oriented and entrepreneurship program development, standard operating procedures, market scan, monitoring and evaluation framework, and Saksham operating procedures. Active alumni participation was also integrated in the project. The project will focus on youths in the age of 18 – 29 years (60% women) from disadvantaged communities of target areas in Delhi, Uttarakhand and Uttar Pradesh in India who have less opportunity compared to their peers because they face social, economic and/or geographic obstacles, educational difficulties and/or cultural differences. The project will be rolled out for three years with yearly deliverables and key performance indicators in place. It is believed that more areas could be added in the projects subsequently depending on need analysis and potential. The project will have year-by-year budgeting of training 3.250 youth for next three years. The project will accordingly be up scaled as per the needs identified while implementing the project.

The project will consider the following activities:

1.	Mobilise NEET youth in urban slums to join Saksham program
•	Street corner meetings to invite NEET youth to join Saksham
•	Engage parents to support girls and boys enrolment
•	Community advertisements and kiosks to promote awareness on Saksham and its advantages;
•	Promote alumni as role models to motivate and invite youth to join

2.	Test aptitude of youth for specific vocational courses and counselling
•	Analyse personal,  educational and family information about youth who have shown interest;
•	Share summary of courses on offer and opportunities;
•	Test aptitude of youth for the courses on offer; (to help understand potential to set-up self-employment unit and gainful employment)
•	Counselling of youth to provide complete information on events/ activities to follow

3.	Market oriented vocational skills trainings (the trainings under the project are not gender specific number of girls have joined retail marketing, and IT based jobs, whereas boys have opted for hospitality trade)
•	Market scan at regular intervals to determine skills requirement of market/employers
•	Vocational training as per trade
•	curriculum facilitated by specialist VT trainers;
•	English language and basic computer skills trainings (in JOVT); 
•	Monthly parents, teacher and trainee meetings to assess learning progress

4.	Gender equality and soft skills trainings
•	Gender awareness training by sector experts;
•	Guide youth understand gender relations at personal, community and work spaces.
•	Life skills, personal hygiene Plan works together in partnerships with the following organizations in order to sustain changes and assets developed within the timeline of the project: 

a) Local grassroots NGOs will support with recruitment and provide post-placement and tracking support to youth to be retained on the job and succeed in life. After the project, experience gained will improve and increase the effectiveness of the intervention of these organisations. 

b) Improved curricula developed including soft/life skills and gender equality will enhance the support provide by training partners to prepare youth for job placement. As the training curriculum is harmonized with the accepted standards as laid down by the National Skills Development Corporation (NSDC), it will allow the use of the curriculum in other training centres than the ones involved directly in the project. 

ICT assets developed under Saksham will lead and guide all youth economic empowerment work across Plan India. The proposed interventions envisage application of ICT as enabler for maximizing the reach of the program to the most deserving youth from disadvantaged families as well as to bring consistency in its curriculum which is designed as per Occupational standards of NCVT and NSDC in India. 

From the perspective of youth, the interventions proposed will address the skill development needs of youth providing them an opportunity to become part of the formal economy. The project will inculcate confidence and solidarity in young girls preparing them to positively respond to any safety and gender equality concerns that hinder their mobility to their workplace. Income generated through job and self-employment will enable girls and women to spend money on recreational activities, invest in education of children or spend for higher education. Also, young women will take active part in the family affairs and will improve in the decision making capabilities too.

With the entrepreneurship skills development and start of new businesses, the project will contribute to the government policy changes related to “Made in India”, ease of doing business, small and medium enterprise promotion, digital India, funding of start-ups, easy loans for young entrepreneurs is propelling job creation in both urban and rural areas.