WOMEN IN INDIA (2) - WOMENS STRENGTH AND INDIAS DEVELOPMENT: 

The gender ratio in India is said to be 933 females per 1000 males, which is way below the world’s average gender ratio of 990/1000. This horrible situation comes due to the fact that females have always faced discrimination against them, and although like male or even above them female plays important role in the family and national development, her contribution is not recognized by the male dominant society.*

Women in India suffer from the abortion of female child; foeticide; malnutrition; denial of education and many other issues. These practices come from cultural beliefs and financial reasons such as educational backwardness, low income, unemployment, and although the Indian Government has showed efforts to finish this cultural traits there is still lots to be done. **

India represents a picture of contrasts when it comes to education and employment opportunities for girls. However, the rural and the urban areas present a contrast.

UNDP data: (2011)

Adult literacy rate: 62.8%
Male literacy rate: 82,14%
Female literacy rate: 65.46%
Gender gap rate: 16.68% 

WOMEN DEVELOPMENT REPORT (2003):

Women in workforce:
13,9% in urban sector.
29,9% in rural sector.

WOMEN IN INDIA- HOW FREE? HOW EQUAL? (2001)

245 million Indian women lack basic capability to read and write.

COMMINIT.COM data:

70% of the 1.2 billion people living in poverty in the world are female.

In the rural areas the girl child is made to perform  household and agricultural chores. Households are therefore reluctant to spare them for schooling. Physical safety of the girls, especially when they have to travel a long distance to school and fear of sexual harassment are other reasons that impede girls' education.
In the urban areas, however, there is a discernible difference in the opportunities that girls get for education and employment. Though the figures for girls would still be low as compared to boys, what is heartening to see is that whenever given the opportunity, girls have excelled more than boys.***

Investing in human capital is one of the most effective means of reducing poverty and encouraging sustainable development. And gender discrimination hinders development. So while denial of education, employment or health care for women is detrimental to women, this denial, ultimately also harms the society by hampering development. ***

 Parent-child relationship is significantly determined by the education level and employment status of woman in the family. Education on the part of women brings about positive changes in their own and their husbands’ parenting style. Educated women can raise educated kids, with knowledge about hygiene and life skills.***

Gender equality is a solution for a country’s development and EMPOWER PRAGATI is for sure doing an excellent work on empowering women in India. It trained 9771 people last year, of which 45% are women. And also, will train 2 million men and women in the next 10 years.

*(“Gender Equality and Women’s Empowernment in India” – National Family Health Survey - http://www.measuredhs.com/pubs/pdf/od57/od57.pdf)

**(“Gender discrimination and Women’s development in India” by M. SIVAKUMAR , Ph.D Scholar in Economics, Chikkaiah Naicker College- http://mpra.ub.uni-muenchen.de/10901/1/MPRA_paper_10901.pdf)

***  “Gender inequality in education and employment

by  Geeta Sharma, Editor, Learningchannel.org”

http://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=1&ved=0CJEBEBYwAA&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.yesweb.org%2Falexandria_02%2Fsessions%2Fop.inequality.doc&ei=F-fFT5WWBY3QrQeMmqG5BQ&usg=AFQjCNH6lGVO_jVvf4aetmGjMrXiELq5ig&sig2=N4y1B2DazxMAK31ORUQ-iQ

Hello everybody!!!

This is what a member of Leadership Quest team and CEO of UBM, Mr David Levin wrote to Mr Rajiv Sharma, Managing Director of Empower Pragati after the Bain Quest Leadership team visit to Gurgaon centre on April 20th. 

Dear Rajiv,

[...]

You have been on my mind, however, and I wanted to be sure to write to thank you for many things - for making the effort host us, for being so interested and engaged in understanding the purpose of our Quest and how to make your comments most relevant to the group, for sharing with us some of your own personal story – and on how you have transitioned from corporate life to a values centric life

For sharing your ambitious vision to provide the training that will empower a whole generation of people to come into the formal economy and make the most of their lives. That ambition struck a chord with the room

Thank you  for being such a warm and supportive guest of Leaders’ Quest.

I could tell by the energy in the room that the Bain partners were very interested in what you were saying and would have loved to have had more time with you and all those you are working with. 

Overall, our Quest days with Bain were a real success.  Here are a couple of examples of what people said at the reflection times at the end of their days out ‘experiencing India’:

From one participant: “I want to revisit my priorities in life; what else can I do? Rethink what really matters in life; sometimes we as ‘biz people’ forget what is really important. Thank you.” And from another one:  “We need to change the way we think about what impact is; I learned from social entrepreneurs how broad impact can be - not just profits. Purpose, too.  We need to raise our game.” 

So, Rajiv, a big thank you from me and Leaders’ Quest for being part of this.  Your comments on Monday, your life experience and your ambition helped people not only to understand India at a deeper level, but also to learn about what it means to lead responsibly in a world full of challenges. They also loved the opportunity to meet some of those you are helping – that give real feeling to the experience

I very much hope we can stay in touch, and next time, have more time to talk about the future. I know my colleagues in Leaders’ Quest in India will want to stay in touch and am copying Max Metcalfe and Gitika Mohta who will I am sure want to stay in touch.

Warm regards and Thank You,

Best

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

David Levin| 

THE NEW OUTSOURCING DESTINATIONS:

Almost 67% of India's population is in villages and there are over 100 mn skilled youth in rural areas - a huge talent pool for the BPO industry to tap.

The India BPO industry no longer enjoys the cost arbitrage that it had a few years ago and new destinations like the Philippines, S Korea, and China are being looked at as attractive destinations for outsourcing. The India companies are setting up shops in these destinations and moving towards high-value processes. Another challenge that they face is acquiring and retaining talent, which leads to increase in hiring and retraining costs. However, there is a significant opportunity in the domestic outsourcing market, which is not being focused on by many of the larger players, which could see an emergence of new set of BPO players.

Almost 67% of India's population is in villages and there are over 100 mn skilled youth in rural areas who are unemployed. Yet rural India continues to be a significant but untapped resource for skilled manpower for the BPO industry. Organizations with vision can leverage this resource and provide a sustained source of income to rural citizens. A strong rural business model can ensure empowerment, self-sufficiency, and an improved lifestyle for Indians residing in villages and art a broader level, improve the national economy. This is an area where the rural BPOs may be able to play an important role, which will not only contribute to the growth of the economy and industry but also provide the competitive edge, which is diminishing.

Rural BPOs are a win-win for all stakeholders, as they have the following advantages:
- They give a cost arbitrage of 20-40% over the large BPO vendors who operate out of tier-land tier-2 cities.
- They provide a great opportunity for companies in telecom, consumer goods, insurance, banking, auto-mobiles, etc to connect with their costumers in the rural areas, in their local language since 25-50% of their revenue now comes from rural areas.
-Acquisition and retraining costs are low due to negligible attrition.
-They allow the company to fulfill their CSR mandate by contributing to the employment and livelihood of rural youth.
Empower Pragati, a partner company of NSDC, is focused on setting up Rural BPOs and skill building in other trades. It was started in 2010 with an aim to bridge the gap in skill building area, as India would need almost 500 mn skilled people by 2022.
Our first center has been set up in Majru Karala (a village in North West Delhi), in partnership wirh Navjyoti Foundation, an NGO founded by Dr Kiran Bedi. The aim is to set up more than 100 such centers across the country over the next few years.

This article was written by ARUN BHARDWAJ. The author is CEO, rural BPO business, Empower Pragati Vocational and Staffing Pvt. Ltd.

 

maildqindia@cybermedia.co.in

Contact us: 

Vibhash Kumar (B-87A, Kalkaji, New Delhi- 110019)
T: 91-11-49556000
E: vibhash.kumar@empowerpragati.in/ info@empowerpragati.in
www.empowerpragati.in 

 

Social entreprises H3F gain business by training uneducated youth for organised industries

An article from Economic Times.

Eighteen-year-old Chandu Marati worked at construction sites and washed dishes in small, roadside hotels in the remote Gorentla village in Nalgonda, Andhra Pradesh. He now not only speaks fluent English, but can also easily operate a computer.

This transformation in his life was made possible by a social enterprise and education start-up , Head Held High Foundation (H3F). H3F, founded by entrepreneurs Madan Padaki, Rajesh Bhat, Samik Ghosh and Sunil Savara, creates skilled talent pool in villages and finds them assured placement in industries such as business process outsourcing (BPO).

The two-year-old start-up trains people in the 18-25 age bracket, who have barely been to a formal school, to take on salaried jobs in the formal sector. Marati who dropped out of school in the fifth standard due to financial constraints, now plans to become a hotel receptionist, once he completes the six-month residential course for boys and girls. "I didn't like going to school.

The teachers would beat me black and blue and make me do their personal chores. Learning here is fun and has given me a lot of confidence," said Marati, who lost his father when he was a toddler and has been living with his grandparents.

Marati is among the 250 students who are being trained by H3F at its centres in Hindupur located in Anantapur district in Andhra Pradesh and Gadag district in Karnataka. Many are construction, handloom and agriculture workers working in and around these villages.

A pool of 20 trainers who are mostly engineering and management graduates use various methods such as theatre, stories , videos, music and audios to help the students learn better. The students are taught English, mathematics , logic, business studies, computer and life skills.

The start-up counts India's largest BPO Genpact, Housing Development Finance Corporation (HDFC) and UK-based The Data Imaging & among the top employers of its students. Around 130 people have already been trained and almost 60% of them have got jobs.

Among them are Ramesh and Chandru, who never received any formal schooling . They now work as team leads for vBPO, a micro-BPO set up in Kanakagiri, Koppal district in Karnataka, earning over 10,000 per month. More than 300 million people live below the poverty line in India. A majority of them live in villages - isolated from the rest of the world - and can barely read or write, said Rajesh Bhat, co-founder of H3F and manages Magic Wand, the training arm of the foundation.

A former software engineer at OnMobile, a leading mobile value added services company, Bhat thought of starting H3F during one of his visits to his village Sirsi, a remote place in Karnataka. Bhat and team set up the proof-of-concept in 2007 by recruiting a group of village youth who had never received education .

He demonstrated that it was indeed possible to make them employable in a short span of eight months. "It is a very radical model. The question is if you can do it for 500, can you do it for five million. I think they can succeed," said Kartik Kilachand, president at New York-based World BPO Forum, a platform for best practices in global sourcing.

H3F has approached National Skills Development Cor-poration (NSDC), which has expressed interest in working with the firm. NSDC has received seed capital of 1,000 crore from the government , which it is investing among social entrepreneurs and educational institutions . It has a mandate of skilling 150 million people by 2022 by catalysing private sector involvement in sustainable training ventures.

While entrepreneurs such as Bhat are focused on villages, Rajendra Joshi, cofounder of Empower Pragati, is tapping the urban poor. NSDC has invested seed capital in the social enterprise. It has given a loan of 18 crore and has a stake in the company.

Empower Pragati specialises in livelihood skill development to empower India's disadvantaged youth. It provides youth skills training, confidence building , and career networking. Empower Pragati's entrepreneurial and market-based courses, which includes computer and conversational English training, prepare the students for jobs in BPO and retail companies.

The one-yearold start-up has trained around 8,000 people at 33 centres across 16 districts in 10 states. The students have been hired by companies such as Vishal Mega Mart, Big Bazaar, McDonalds, Lifestyle,Hindustan Unilever, Reliance, Airtel and Vodafone.

Empower charges 500 per student and between 1500-5 ,000 from the employer. "Welfare schemes are not sustainable. We are trying to teach them how to fish," said Joshi, chief executive officer and cofounder of Empower Pragati.

Challenges

Kilachand of World BPO Forum believes that the key for these new social enterprises is the ability to scale on a sustainable basis, which implies bringing together other stakeholders such as industry, foundations, private equity firms and NGOs.

Joshi, who aims to establish urban resource centers to train the youth, says raising much needed private equity funds is a challenge. "We approached a few investors, who told us to first establish 2,000 centres in three years," said Joshi.

Other challenges for entrepreneurs such as Joshi and Bhat of H3F is finding good trainers, standardised curriculum and assessments, said Srikrishna Sridhar Murthy, co-founder and chairman at Bangalore-based Sattva Media and Consulting, which is focused on social enterprises and organisations.

He believes that around 60,000-crore grant goes to the non-governmental organisation sector, but the problem with social enterprises is they do not collaborate . They consider each other as competitors , as they are dependent on the grant agencies, which cannot fund everyone. "The key here is to make the business sustainable rather be dependent on grants," said Murthy.

Women Empower in Iindia

UNDP data: (2011)

Adult literacy rate: 62.8%
Male literacy rate: 82,14%
Female literacy rate: 65.46%
Gender gap rate: 16.68% 

WOMEN DEVELOPMENT REPORT (2003):

Women in workforce:
13,9% in urban sector.
29,9% in rural sector.

WOMEN IN INDIA- HOW FREE? HOW EQUAL? (2001)

245 million Indian women lack basic capability to read and write.

COMMINIT.COM data:

70% of the 1.2 billion people living in poverty in the world are female.

The principle of gender equality is stated in the Indian Constitution in its preamble, fundamental rights, fundamental duties, and Directive principles. However, women represent the majority of the population below the poverty line and are very often in situations of extreme poverty.
The status of women in India is a paradox. While some women are achieving professional success, others are still far from getting a school diploma. In India, there are 930 women per 1000 men, which is way below the world average of 990/1000. Data from the Census of India 2001 and the Human Development report 2001 shows that the male-female ratio is still lower than it was 100 years ago. Plus, in societies where men and women are treated equally, women tend to outlive and outnumber men.

This situation enlightened above does not happen in India due to problems women face. Such as mal nutrition, poor health, maternal mortality, mistreatment, poor health, maternal mortality, overworking, lack of power, bad marriage, dowry, female infanticide, divorce and lack of education.
In India, from medieval times women were dismissed from studying due to the preception that women need only household education. And nowadays that still happens in villages of India, where girls are destined to fulfill domestic duties. And although  this situation has changed in urban areas, 70% of the population still lives in rural areas of India, where they are still in medieval times. That leads to terrifying numbers:

 67% of 875 million of illiterate adults, are women.3 out of 5 women in southern asia are still illiterate.
60% of the 130 million children in the age group of 6-11 years that dont go to school are girls.

The main reasons for not sending girls to school are, firstly, poor economic condition, secondly, the far off location of schools. Parents are concerned girls might loose their purity and virginity when given the opportunity to leave for school, where they will be in touch with other boys and men.

The lack of education is a severe issue in India because it leads to several other issues, An uneducated person does not know about deadly diseases or hygiene, which may lead poor health of the whole family.
In that sense, Empower Pragati fights against women disadvantage, also youth disadvantage by giving them a well structured skill training,
This training allows women and the young aged to be employed in the service sector, that has experienced a boom in the last years. The service sector has a high demand for capable workers, so that way, those well trained men and women are placed in multinationals.

Empower Pragati trains nowadays 9500 people per year and will train 2 million people within the next 10 years. Together with the national skill development corporation and other institutions, empower represents the concrete action to overcome this devastating situation for women and also for youth.