Livelihoods
Initiatives > Livelihoods
India is a big country with a population of 1.3 billion people. It has approximately 6,00,000 villages with 70 percent of its population staying in rural areas.
Most of the youth are leaving the villages in search of livelihood and ultimately land in urban slums and live a miserable existence to earn and feed their families back home. There are thousands and thousands of ghost villages in our hilly terrains where the youth have left their prime occupation of agriculture and left for urban areas in search of jobs. The foundation recognizes this monumental problem and has been working to mitigate this enormous task through various interventions such as supporting vocational training programs, good agricultural practices, encouraging traditional arts, animal rearing practices, setting up small enterprises etc.
Technical skill building through vocational training
The Hans Foundation-supported organizations like Don Bosco Tech for vocational training of youth in north-east India for their livelihoods opportunities. Similarly, in the northeast – projects were also granted to Tomorrow’s Foundation, Prayas JAC for employment generation of youth. In the endeavor, the screening/selection of candidates was given top priority to arrive at the most eligible candidates. The training curriculum was designed after assessing the needs of the industry and the training was imparted with a combination of a classroom session, practical and placement in the actual industry setting.
Farm-based agriculture interventions
The Hans Foundation has supported projects across India for enhancing farm-based interventions through aptly designed agricultural packages. The projects were granted to the National Foundation of India, Sadguru, Himalayan Action Research Centre, SBMA, Himmothan, Srijan, International Association for Human Values, Tata Trust on this. These projects covered states like Assam, Odisha, Uttarakhand, Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh, Karnataka.
Animal husbandry and dairy production
To bolster the household level income, the activities around poultry, piggery, dairy were also introduced for the gainful engagement of women. The initial support to the deserving families was given under the project and the technical inputs around the venture were also provided by the experts who extended handholding support. For the dairy projects, the funding support was given for cattle, feed, chilling plants, establishing the collection centers and even formalizing the distribution system.
Leveraging government schemes for employment
Linkages with government schemes have been one of the strategies that The Hans Foundation has been promoting with its partners. The partners availed government programs like the National Skill Development Council (NSDC), Ministry of Skill Development and Entrepreneurship in developing the training modules and assessment of candidates. The NSDC Certified training provided greater opportunity and recognition of the courses conducted by the candidates.
