MUMBAI: In 2015 HSBC India and the Swades Foundation forged a Rs 50 crore partnership under the ‘HSBC Skills for Life’ programme to skill 30,000 youth and place at least 70% of them in formal employment through a grant-to-NGO model.
This was implemented through a multi-stakeholder approach with KPMG engaged for screening of proposals from NGOs and Tata Institute of Social Sciences and Deloitte for monitoring and evaluation of the selected projects.
Nearly 300 to 400 proposals from NGOs pan-India were received each year. An eminent panel of the Advisory Board comprising of heads of corporates and experts was set up; they guided and helped in the final selection of NGOs each year who were awarded the grant.
In all, 97 projects in 21 states were funded across these five years. Interestingly, around 20% of these projects had exclusively focused on persons with disabilities.
The programme has so far trained over 32,000 needy youth, nearly 50% of whom belong to economically backward communities. Most of the youth reached through this were school or college dropouts and had never been formally employed before.
They were trained across 9 skill sectors – Retail, Automotive, Transportation & Logistics, Tourism, Hospitality, Electronics & IT Hardware, IT & ITES, Healthcare and BFSI and almost 65% of 20,000 youth placed so far in formal employment has been within their home district.
All youth placed and continuing employment so far collectively generate an income of over Rs 132 crores annually and growing.
The programme, though initially targeting to train 30,000 youth, will eventually reach to 20% more youth by the time all funded projects finish implementation by the end of 2022. COVID-19 and the associated lockdown did have an impact on the programme as all projects came to a standstill. However, this also presented an opportunity as many NGOs took their courses online or calibrated the training to those sectors that were least impacted by the pandemic.
Aloka Majumdar, Head of Corporate Sustainability, HSBC India points out, “The programme has brought to light a host of learnings with the pandemic adding a whole new dimension. A key observation is that it is critical to integrate life skills training along with vocational / technical training. While there isn’t any strict definition of life skills, it includes skills such as decision making, critical thinking, effective communication, interpersonal relationships, self-awareness, assertiveness, coping with stress, resilience etc. Skills for Life is more a multi-stakeholder platform with Swades as the anchor partner. Together the stakeholders brought in best practices, ideas and expertise.”
Sharing his thoughts, Mangesh Wange, CEO, Swades Foundation said, “The HSBC Skills for Life Programme was designed to equip youth with necessary, job-ready skills and provide economic opportunities to the underprivileged rural and urban youth. Through this programme, we’ve successfully reached needy households across the country enabling them with a stable source of income. In the current scenario, sustainable careers for Indian youth through skilling is a post-pandemic necessity. We are thankful to HSBC India for engaging us as a key partner in this and I am glad that together we have been able to go beyond the targets that we had set ourselves for.”
Swades Foundation is a Not for Profit organization focussing on rural empowerment through holistic development impacting over 2,700 villages in rural India. Founded by Ronnie & Zarina Screwvala, the Swades Foundation aims to empower 1 million rural lives every five years, lifting them out of poverty by empowering communities to take charge of their own lives.
Swades adopts a model of holistic transformation and works in education, health and nutrition, water, sanitation, and economic development. Its unique 4 E strategy of Engage, Empower, Execute, and Exit truly empowers the community and builds village leadership to take on the mandate of transforming their own village community.
