Global Reach: Grantee Partners

New Resolution India (Bright Future)

Context:

India has over 350 million young adults who are in working age (15 years - 29 years of age); 30% of who are Not in Education, Employment or Training (NEET).  Further, less than 25% of them will make the transition to higher secondary education or technical education - a significantly smaller number of young women than young men. There are 3 significant reasons for this sharp drop as evidenced by the work that Antarang has been doing since 2013:

1.     A lack of awareness of opportunities and the pathways to get there

2.     A lack of resources and skills to take advantage of career opportunities

3.     A lack of access to opportunities that would help vulnerable young adults build meaningful careers that would break the intergenerational cycle of poverty that their families were caught in. 

Young women are especially vulnerable. The Labour Force Participation rate for young women, especially from urban low income communities, is less than 20%. Lack of financial independence, lack of agency to access the employment marketplace due to the lack of awareness of opportunities is even more underscored when it comes to young women.

The current COVID crisis has highlighted the gaps even further - the successive lockdowns, loss of jobs, reduced public transport, health, food and income insecurity and a deterioration of mental health due to anxiety around all of the above has resulted in a severe loss of mobility and access leading to a further decrease in the ability of marginalised young adults to access the employment marketplace.

In light of this crisis and the continuing exclusion of marginalised young adults, providing access to local employment opportunities and continuing to help these aspirational young adults stay relevant is even more critical. Our insights point to the need for investing in building agency and resilience doubly now - as marginalised young not only need to start believing that they too have their place in mainstream career opportunities but also be able to survive this crisis that has dealt a severe blow to them.

 

The COVID crisis has highlighted the need to address their emotional resilience and deep-seated fears in addition to building their awareness of self, careers, work skills and work ethics to bring about change in mindsets that would be sustained.

Organization:

Bright Future was co-founded by Kishor Palve in 2009 with the aim of providing employment related support to youth from marginalized communities. Bright Future developed its program to transform youth potential into gainful employment and with EMpower’s support, Bright Future has actively reached out to a higher number of young women who would otherwise be at risk of early marriage. Ove the last few years, Bright Future’s team has been actively engaging with parents in the community to change mindsets related to women at work and uses ‘Drama for Development’ to achieve this.

Bright Future has set up a youth advisory council to engage their alumni and other youth in the community. Additionally, some of their program participants have been hired as full-time staff and an increasing number of new staff are from the communities that Bright Future works in – this helps them understand the community challenges first hand and accordingly customize program offering.

Current Grant:

EMpower’s seventh grant to New Resolution India (Bright Future) will support 240 youth (15-24; 70% girls, 30% boys) with employability training and SEL complemented by mentorship, stipend, placement as well as post-placement support. It will also pilot two new initiatives: formalise its alumni engagement programming by reaching out to 125 youth to (a) strengthen employability training and placement through continuous feedback, (b) build out peer networks within the communities, and (c) form a youth advisory committee comprised by 20 young women that is empowered to identify and solve for issues within their communities, and begin integrating a DEI lens at a strategy, operations, and programmatic level through an intersectional lens

Primary Location: Mumbai

Website: http://brightfutureindia.org

Funded Since: 2016

Grantee shoutouts!

EMpower’s Girl Leaders Moderate Session at Sankalp Global Summit 2019!

Posted 15 January 2020

Building Bridges in Mumbai: A discussion on engaging men and boys in gender issues

Posted 16 August 2019

Advancing learning through collaboration with our grantee partners in Mumbai

Posted 31 May 2019