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The project provides skills training and employment opportunities to young people from the slums and streets of Kolkata. The project gives poor young people - especially girls - the skills they need to break out of the slums and into skilled employment.
Categories
Beneficiaries
Situation
Only 5% of young Indians have vocational skills, compared with 80% in some European countries. Without skills and education, the prospects of young people in the slums of Kolkata are bleak, and they are likely to spend the rest of their lives as unskilled workers in the informal labour market. In India, girls are further disadvantaged by a society that favours boys. As a result, while three quarters of boys in India can read or write; only half of girls can.
Solution
The Life Skills project provides more than 300 young people every year with skills and education in catering, tailoring and computing. Those in the centre receive not only vocational training in one of the three areas, but also in mathematics and English. The project also gives 150 of these young people work experience both in The Hope Foundation and also Kolkata businesses. HOPE works to encourage girls taking part in the Life Skills Centre project, with 60% of students being girls.