YP Newsletter

“There are two ways of spreading light - to be the candle or the mirror that reflects it” - Edith Wharton, Vesalius in Zante

VISION STATEMENTCreate opportunities for school dropouts and deprived youths to help lead productive and socially useful lives.

MISSION STATEMENTTo give a second chance to less educated deprived youth through wage or self-employment based on urban and rural livelihoods training provided in partnership with stakeholders.

December 2013

A new identity for Yuva Parivartan

• Yuva Parivartan the Vocational Training Initiative of Kherwadi Social Welfare Association, has through its 15 year journey of growth emerged as one of the largest movements in the country, imparting livelihood skills to under privileged youth across the country. With a presence in over 18 states, working in 5 domains and through 5 delivery systems, we train over 1 lakh students a year.

• As we embark on the very ambitious next phase of our growth trajectory of training 1 million youth per year, we are taking several steps to help us get there. These include strengthening our teams, systems and processes. We are also adopting a new Corporate Identity and logo to reflect dynamism and leadership in imparting livelihood skills and also in our academics, examination & certification functions.

• It gives me great pleasure in presenting to you, our new Corporate Identity and sharing with you the rationale that went into creating it. • Our new identity reads “KSWA’s Yuva Parivartan Academy” and is an impactful integration of the Yuva Parivartan Movement with

KSWA . Yuva Parivartan Academy symbolizes our move towards playing a larger University like role in setting benchmarks and standards in Vocational Skill Development, besides defining our position as India’s premier vocational training institute. The youth leaping with a power symbol in hand and the rising sun from our old logo have been retained to be the most prominent part of the logo. The new identity reflects Yuva Parivartan’s mission emotionally with the words “Giving Youth a Second Chance”

 

• The new logo is created in the same bright and vibrant colours as earlier, to convey energy, optimism and strength and to maintain a continuing link with our identity of the past fifteen years. It is contemporary in design and showcases Yuva Parivartan as a professional academic institution with a human side.

A new identity for Yuva Parivartan

News

Yuva Parivartan gets recognized at SEOY-India Awards

KSWA’s Yuva Parivartan was proud to be selected as a finalists for the Social Entrepreneur Of the Year award by the Schwab Foundation for Social Entrepreneurship and the Jubilant Bhartia Foundation out of a field of over 200 entrants. Mr. P Chidambaram, Finance Minister of the Government of India was the guest of honour at the awards banquet on November 11 th in Delhi with media partner CNBC TV18. Please see the segment on YP carried on TV18 at the following link:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jI_8SThIzDw

Mrs. Mrinalini Kher, Hon. Secretary and Trustee and Mr. Kishor Kher, President and Trustee were on hand to receive a citation.

L-R Mr Kishor Kher, President & Trustee, Yuva Parivartan; Mrs Mrinalini Kher, Trustee & Hon. Secretary, Yuva Parivartan; Mr Shyam S Bhartia, Director, Jubilant Bhartia Foundation & CMD, Jubilant Life Sciences Ltd; Mr P Chidambaram, Finance Minister, Government of India and Prof. Klaus Schwab, Co-Founder, Schwab Foundation for Social Entrepreneurship & Founder & Executive Chairman, World Economic Forum and Mr Hari S Bhartia

Another award for Yuva Parivartan…..TATA Housing Business Excellence Award

• KSWA’s Yuva Parivartan has been recognized as a valued partner of the sustainability journey of TATA Housing in October 2013.

• MDTE Director, Mr. Kailas Barve and his team were on hand at the reception dinner held by the TATA Housing to show appreciation to the awardees.

L-R: Santosh Sapkale, Former Student, Yuva Parivartan (YP); Mr. Kailas Barve, Director MDTE at YP; Mr. Brotin Banerjee, MD and CEO, TATA Housing, Mr. Anand Tribhuvan, Area Manager MDTE, YPand Mr. Mahesh Shetty, Senior Manager MDTE, YP.

Thank you Accenture Volunteers• For almost two years the team members of Accenture have been

giving of their time to students at Yuva Parivartan LDCs in Maharashtra. They teach English and Life Skills and have become a welcomed addition at the LDCs.

• The Accenture volunteers were recently felicitated and presented with certificates of appreciation by Yuva Parivartan. Vandita, one of the volunteers noted that in helping the students with time management she has seen an improvement in her own time-management skills.

• The volunteers shared how students told them how they had missed job employment opportunities because they did not speak English, thus the English classes are very important for these students. In addition, they have women who have enrolled in the class because they want to learn for their kids.

• We are truly grateful for the involvement of these volunteers.

Uma Sundararaman, Head Counselling, KSWA’s Yuva Parivartan and Dheeraj Sharma (first R) with the Accenture Volunteers.

Congrats to the Yuva Parivartan Premier League (YPPL) winners so far

• The Yuva Parivartan Premier League is our associate reward and recognition programme; rewarding high performance behaviours and results from our associates. With the launch of YPPL in regions 1 & 3 so far it is good to share that the first month was a resounding success.  Associates were engaged and motivated to play the game and as a result, they have been reaping the rewards. 

• Some areas in R1 were operating below their potential, however, by embracing YPPL with gusto, there has been marked improvement in the general performance with 39 prizes awarded so far; 3 Gold coins,17 Silver coins and 19 Letters of Appreciation (LOA) and Parker pens. 

• In R3, the associates also went to bat with passion resulting in a total of 41 awards; 13 Gold coins, 17 Silver coins and 11 LOA and Parker pens being won. “It was really good to see how the participation of the associates embodied the concept of the three Es; Energy, Enthusiasm and Excitement”! – Sanjay Bhusare, Livelihoods Manager

•  Congratulations to all our winners so far in the YPPL. All the best for the rest of the series.

YPPremiere League

Gold & silver Coins Holiday in Goa

Champions Trophy

Meet Veena Gidwani, former CEO Madison PR – Advisor to the MarCom Team

• Ms. Veena Gidwani has been a communications professional for over thirty years. She has considerable experience managing businesses and people. She chose to give up full time working last year so that besides professional commitments she could also devote some time to giving back to society and pursue other interests. She is a volunteer at Yuva Parivarton as an Advisor to the MarCom Team. She was introduced to Yuva Parivartan through a friend and after she had a better understanding of its mission, activity and achievements she saw where she could contribute in a small way to making this movement bigger.

Ms. Gidwani says, “YP's focus on skilling youth is an area of utmost importance to the country today and needs as much support as possible to make it impact more lives.” Though she has a busy schedule, she makes the time for volunteering because she gets personal satisfaction from doing so. Her volunteering at Yuva Parivartan is one such activity which always gets slotted into her calendar.

•She would encourage talented people to be associated with Yuva Parivartan by telling them that ‘”you are going to be a part of a movement that is critical for the country; you will work with a team that is extremely capable and passionate and have the satisfaction of seeing the improved lives of many young Indians.”- is Ms. Gidwani’s message to potential volunteers.

• Ms. Gidwani really appreciates how most people that she has interacted with at Yuva Parivartan are passionate about the cause of skilling and vocational training as well as the need to excel in their individual areas of expertise. After more than a year of being associated with Yuva Parivartan, she says she is she is still learning about many of Yuva Parivartan’s achievements and successes... “there is a huge storehouse of knowledge and success stories that are yet to be told” – Veena Gidwani.

Veena Gidwani, Volunteer, Advisor to the MarCom Team

Food for Thought

“The more we come out and do good to others,

the more our hearts will be purified, and God will

be in them.” –Swami Vivekananda

Former students of the Apple Packaging Course now employed by the Mir Brothers for the apple packaging season in J & K.

YP Initiatives That Have Changed Their Lives

A look at Yuva Parivartan in Kashmir• Giving youth a second chance in Kashmir cannot be

easy; there are border conflicts and many of the villages are so remote they have not seen any outsiders in years, if at all. Yuva Parivartan is pleased to partner with the Chirag Foundation Educational Trust (Baramula District) and the Human Welfare Association (Anantnag District) to provide livelihood opportunities for the underprivileged youth in Jammu and Kashmir.

• Many of the students here are unable to pursue traditional schooling past the eighth grade in these remote villages that in some cases have irregular water supply and poor road network as they are not top of mind for the authorities. This makes them gravely disadvantaged for the working world. They live by subsistence farming, just enough to feed their family and not enough to sell any. Tourism is an area where some of the residents earn a living be it as tour guides or in a hotel, however, with the border conflicts the tourism sector is not at it’s full potential. Any opportunity to create livelihood would be of significance in any of the villages in this state.

Camps and Placements in Kashmir

Most of the courses offered in J & K by Yuva Parivartan are not found in any other region of India. For example, there is Medicinal Plants farming, Kashmiri Handicrafts, Wool Knitting, Apple Packaging and Jari work . There are also the familiar camps like Tailoring and Electrical Wireman. Do take a look at a few of our activities in Kashmir through past students, present students and facilitators as observed by Yolando Sutherland, GSK PULSE Fellow from Jamaica, and Samy Emam, GSK PULSE Fellow from Egypt on their field visit to J&K.

Gulshan Bano - a Role Model in her Village

Gulshan Bano , current Facilitator for the Wool Knitting Camp attended the YP camp in March 2013. This camp is the first camp she is seeing in the village. After she finished learning she approached Mukhtar Bhai from Chirag Foundation/Yuva Parivartan partner to start one in the village. “I wanted to help the ladies in the village to come together for the first time and be independent with a skill” Gulshan said. She had been taught the the basics before and now with all the training from Yuva Parivartan she learnt new techniques to advance her skill. Since the course started Gulshan has seen a lot of happiness in the participants. The students say they wished that the camp lasted longer. She cannot believe that she is actually teaching now because when she first came to class her hands were shaking but now she is more confident. " Yuva Parivartan is very good, we are all learning here because of YP" - Gulshan Bano.

Gulshan Bano, Wool Knitting Facilitator23 yearsPast student

Masooma Bano… a Young Entrepreneur

• Masooma Bano is the Facilitator for the Tailoring Camp in Kanchan, Baramulla. Her students say that she's a role model for them as she is financially independent and running her own household. The students heard about the camp because she did the door to door mobilisation drive where she spoke to potential students about the camp. She has over five years tailoring experience, and she's self-employed. Her father has been bed-ridden for over ten years, and she is the currently the only income-earning member of the family.

• The Panchayat has been so pleased by the training opportunity provided to the youth by Yuva Parivartan; they have sent a letter requesting more camps in their community. Masooma says that she is happy because “coming to the camp has boosted the self-confidence of the ladies”.

• ABOVE: Masooma poses beside her sewing machine.• BELOW: Pieces designed and made by Masooma

Kashmiri Handicrafts Camp in Nowgam

Yuva Parivartan works in Anantnag, Kashmir with our partner, Shabir baba of Human Welfare Association. The camp has jari (zari) work done on pheran, a traditional Kashmiri woollen and embroidery garment; usually worn in the winter months. The garment is loose enough to keep a kangri (earthen bowl with hot coals) to help keep them warm in freezing temperatures. We have conducted several camps in different villages with each camp lasting for 15 days for 4 hours each day.

Ridhwan Akhtar is the Facilitator, she was taught privately two years ago, and she has been working from her home since then. The students say they are learning because they want to earn for themselves. They are also interested in learning other courses if Yuva Parivartan were to offer them.

L: A pheran made by Ridhwan R-ABOVE: Ridhwan Akhtar, Facilitator, Kashmiri Handicrafts, Nowgam, Anantnag R-BELOW: Students in the Kashmiri Handicrafts Camp

Poultry Farming Entrepreneur, Mohamed Altaf

Mohamed Altaf got his second chance when he enrolled in the Poultry Farming course. This was done in partnership with Chirag Foundation in Baramulla, Jammu & Kashmir in February 2013. By March 2013, after finishing the course he did a basic set up of housing for the birds and thus began his business of selling chicken to the members of his local community.

Mohamed is busy making sure that he can provide for himself and his family and is very grateful for the training received from Yuva Parivartan.

Mohamed Altaf,Poultry Farming CoursePringle Village, Baramulla

Great Opportunity to be Self-reliant

• Syed Shagufta lives in Kanchan, Baramulla with her mother, father and three siblings. Unfortunately she failed 12 th standard. Her elder brother and father are the breadwinners of the family. Her brother is employed to a hotel in Srinagar, but her father is currently not working. Syed wanted to learn a skill because she wanted to be able to provide for herself financially and help to educate her younger siblings. 

•She wanted to do tailoring because everyone has to wear clothes and women in her village mainly wear dresses, so that is what she wants to do. She said she would most likely work from home after completing the course. She likes hemming and stitching so far. She is looking forward to learning more from her teacher.

Syed Shagufta24 yearsTailoring Camp, Kanchan

Stimulating young minds by making learning fun! • Did you know? • That there is a Balwadi (pre-school) upstairs the Yuva

Parivartan Bandra LDC catering to toddlers between the ages of 2 ½ to 5 years. There are 150 children who receive a hot, freshly prepared, nutritious mid-day meal, thoroughly enjoyed by the children.

• The Balwadi has been continuously running since 1928 (85 years). Only a nominal contribution of Rs. 900 per annum is charged to the parents. The children are encouraged to actively participate in games, sports and educational activities. At the annual day children who have excelled are given gifts. All national festivals are celebrated with fervour.

There are three teachers and two helpers and the day to day operations are supervised ably by Ms. Dolon Ghosh who has been selflessly volunteering for 10 years.

• Above: Students with Teacher, Jignasha

• Below: Students during activity time with Teacher, Kanta