A year ago, when Vrunali Surve started her career with a stipend of Rs. 5,000, she had no idea where life would take her, much less a well-defined career ambition. Today, Ms. Surve is a Human Resources Executive with a real estate company in the city.
Like Ms. Surve, Sonali Kadam went in for six-week classroom training followed by on-job training, with the sole aim of supporting her family. She is now a sales executive with an international retailer.
Ms. Surve and Ms. Kadam both dedicate their success to Disha, a partnership between the India Development Foundation and United National Development Programme (UNDP), supported by the IKEA Foundation.
According to Clement Chauvet, Chief, Skills and Business Development, UNDP India, the objectives behind the initiative are to improve the lives and livelihood of women through education, training, employment and entrepreneurial skill development.
“We test innovative and scalable public-private partnership models that respond to both the aspirations and needs of women and the demand-side of markets and the private sector. We also establish a continuum that connects education to skills, jobs and growth by fostering a skills ecosystem among stakeholders,” Mr. Chauvet said.
While the project is under way in four areas: Mumbai, Haryana, Karnataka and Delhi and the National Capital Region, 8,10,000 women and girls have benefitted from the project in four years. “Disha will be completing its fourth year in December this year and we have amazing success stories from farmers to tribal women, from college-going girls to married women,” Mr. Chauvet said.
He said women face significant social and economic barriers that inhibit their participation in India’s workforce. “In Disha, women are the key stakeholders in the development process and can be the most important agents of change in the lives of their children and their communities,” he said.
Disha has four verticals. “We focus on school-based counselling of adolescent girls and making them aware about their career opportunities, employment market place, employability service centre, value chain and entrepreneurship skills, for which we have partnered with the International Labour Organisation to train women to start their own businesses,” Mr. Chauvet said.
According to Mr. Chauvet, career guidance and counselling are essential to begin with as these activities are usually carried out in elite schools where parents can afford aptitude tests in schools.
“We have conducted these same activities in municipal schools. Everybody is talking about employment and skilling, but nobody really sees whether schools are capable of turning their students into employable students,” Mr. Chauvet said.
