: The SBI Life Adivasi youth skill development programme, a project being implemented jointly by the M.S. Swaminathan Research Foundation (MSSRF) here and SBI Life Insurance Company, Kerala, for selected tribal youths in the district, has set a model in tribal youth empowerment in the State.
The project is aimed at equipping participants with livelihood skills. The skill development programme looks at the educational and livelihood enhancement of more than 100 tribal youths, who are marginalised in many ways even after completing degree and post graduate courses, says Dr. N. Anilkumar, director, MSSRF.
The topics of the one-year training programme, include basics of self-employment such as bamboo-based income generation programmes, legal awareness, attempting competitive examinations for various government jobs, command over English language, computing, software skills and training to sharpen their own traditional biodiversity knowledge.
“A community-managed website on the history, basic statistics and traditional knowledge of different tribal communities in the region will be published as a part of the project. Tribal youths are finding difficulties to get employment as they don’t have access to facilities such as internet and online services. The project uses information communication technology as a tool to widen their communication scope,” T.R. Suma, co-ordinator of the project, says.
What attracts the tribal youth to the project is the multi-subject training programme, Nandakumar, an engineering diploma holder from Paniya community said. As the programme is being conducted on weekends, it enables the working youth to attend, he adds.
The SPACE, a technical agency involved in application of ICT for social empowerment, has been providing technical support to the programme.
