Impact Study on Skill Training @ Sebajagat, Kalahandi

Introduction

Functional Vocational Training and Research Society (FVTRS) was started in 1993 to promote skill training for the underprivileged youth and completed 23 years of her service to the nation. Since then, it has partnered with several organizations across the country by supporting skill training programs for the school drop-out youth. The organization has trained 1,19,552 youth across the country in more than 200 trades and has supported them for placement and self-employment. In this context, the organization wanted to conduct an impact assessment of the work done by one of its long-standing partners, Seba Jagat working in Kalahandi district of Odisha. The purpose of the assessment study was to find out the impact of skill training program in the lives of rural youth and on their families and communities.

This impact assessment has been one of the innovative interventions that FVTRS has made to understand the impact that is being created by her projects and this is the first of its kind which is undertaken by FVTRS’ team.

We have selected Seba Jagat, Kalahandi, Odisha as Seba Jagat has been working in the field of skill training of youth in the district of Kalahandi in Odisha for over 20 years. The organization has been supported by FVTRS over a period of 7 years to implement skill training projects for different categories of youth across multifarious trades. Seba Jagat is a partner of FVTRS since 2009 and has successfully implemented four skill training projects across various trades such as driving, carpentry, bee-keeping, masonry, nursery raising and organic farming, plumbing, cell-phone repairing, garment making, beautician etc. to name a few.

They are also at present implementing one project of FVTRS. It has so far trained 786 youth in about 23 different trades. In addition to this Seba Jagat has also trained more number of youth in more number of trades by partnering with other organizations.

The study has been carried out by a team of 7 members including 3 members from FVTRS (Mr. P M Philip, Mr. Jimmy and Ms. Anwesha) and 4 members (Ms. Roshnara, Ms. Sili, Mr. Tankadhar and Ms. Chinmayee) from Seba Jagat.

The following are the objectives of the assessment study

• To understand the nature of skill training program imparted to the youth
• To understand the relation and relevance between training and employment/self-employment of the youth along with enhancement and diversification
• To study the best practices of skill training program in the organization
• To study the changes in the socio-economic status of the youth
• To understand the issues and gaps facing skill development program and identify options to address them.
• To understand the strategies taken up by the organization in scaling up skill training programs