Yuva Parivartan works to provide a ‘second chance’ to deprived youth and helps them earn a decent living
Yuva Parivartan is a movement started by Kishor and Mrinalini Kher in 1998 to motivate school dropouts and make them economically independent through vocational training. This is a part of the Kherwadi Social Welfare Association (KSWA) started in 1928 by the late BG Kher, a freedom fighter, statesman and the first prime minister (as the chief minister was then called) of the then Bombay State.
BG Kher was moved by the miserable living conditions and the plight of 100-odd tanner families, who had settled in the marshes of Bandra (E) in Mumbai, in what was then known as Chamdewalla-ki-Wadi. This was the birth of KSWA.
Fittingly, the Yuva Parivartan movement was formally launched by the then President
Dr APJ Abdul Kalam in February 2003 and is the flagship programme of KSWA, under Kishor and Mrinalini Kher.
Yuva Parivartan engages with the youth from slums and rural areas and provides them with vocational and other skill-based training through a wide spectrum of 25-odd courses that it offers based on local needs and demand. The popular courses include knowledge of computers, basic wireman’s training, tailoring & fashion designing, mobile repair, beautician, hardware mechanic, motor mechanic, arc-welding, etc. These skills help people become self-employed or eligible for wage-based employment giving students who have dropped out of school and college a second chance.
Yuva Parivartan’s success has placed it in a position to help the National Skills Development Mission (NSDM) on a national level. Its work already spans across 18 states in India, namely, Maharashtra, Gujarat, Goa, Karnataka, Uttar Pradesh, Rajasthan, Punjab, Himachal Pradesh, Delhi, Haryana, Chhattisgarh, Jharkhand, Orissa, Madhya Pradesh, Jammu & Kashmir and Bihar. In FY14-15, Yuva Parivartan has provided skills training to about 110,000 youth. Of these, approximately 60% are gainfully employed. “We envision reaching one million youth by 2017,” say KSWA office bearers.
Having created a scalable and replicable model, KSWA is helping smaller and like-minded NGOs build capacities and replicate the model to achieve exponential growth. Better safety standards, better emoluments and working conditions could bring about a win-win situation for skill training institutes and for the industry, feels KSWA.
The programme is however, not without its share of problems. Boredom, fatigue and lack of staying power makes youngsters in India quit their jobs easily. Yuva Parivartan tries to overcome this through value-based training to bring about an attitudinal change in the youth.
KSWA is ISO-9001:2000 certified. Among KSWA’s admirers and sponsors is Dr RA Mashelkar, president of Global Research Alliance and former director-general CSIR (Council of Scientific and Industrial Research). He says, “The uniqueness of the Yuva Parivartan programme is its ability to address the three most important paradoxes confronting the livelihoods space in the country today, where 80% of the youth, who do not complete school, receive only 20% of the attention; where 90% jobs are in the unorganised sectors, but only 10% of the attention and resources are directed towards unorganised sector; and while 70% of the population lives in the villages, only 30% of the attention goes towards rural India. I am sure Yuva Parivartan will inspire many other NGOs to come into the space of skill development and truly help India leverage its demographic dividend.”
Donations to Yuva Parivartan are eligible for tax exemption under Section 80G of Income-Tax Act.
Kherwadi Social Welfare Association
Parishramalaya, Teen Bangla Road,
Opp. Municipal School, Kherwadi,
Bandra (E), Mumbai -400 051
Mobile +91-98 196 91851
