Turning young girls into breadwinners

Neha Saini

Tribune News Service

Amritsar, July 24

Helping girls from extremely poor background to stand on their own feet and find employment post studies, Missiondeep Trust, an NGO in the city, is collaborating with local industry to offer employment opportunities.

Its collaboration with FICCI FLO’s project Pankh for skill development, already under way, the girls, trained in various field of hospitality, fashion and textile industry, are being offered jobs to establish themselves as bread winners of their families.

“Most of the girls, who come to us, belong to poor families, whose mothers work as housemaids and fathers are rickshaw pullers. Some of them come from families that have drug addicts. For them, studying serves two purposes – self awareness and earning. We used to have a tough time convincing their families to send them to study and continue without any potential for a possible career. Now, with our collaborations, we have been getting calls for placement for our students, that too locally since they cannot afford to move out of the city,” informed Amrita, one of the branch heads of Missiondeep in the city.

The trust that provides free education to over 200 students, has managed to get calls for 10 of their students and has already offered one of their students a job at Missiondeep as a supervisor. They have also tied up with local hotel chains like Taj and Hyatt, to train their students in hospitality, with a possibility of absorbing them.

FICCI FLO’s teams of mentors including fashion designer Himani Arora and artiste Rubina Singh are already working with their students to teach them nuances of fashion and textile industry.

The National Career Scheme of the Centre, that collects data for skilled unemployed youth and offer them counseling and skill development, is also on their list as Amrita says that the programme will ensure that most of these students are enrolled and registered for employment as per their capabilities.

“The dropout rate among girls and boys is high for higher education only because of the fact that they do not get jobs. With skill development programmes and collaborative efforts for getting them employment, we might just be able to change the future course of their lives.”