Dr Reddy's, Tata Council join hands

The Tata Council for Community Initiatives (Hyderabad regional group) and Dr Reddy's Foundation (DRF) have announced an initiative called 'Neev "� The Foundation', for enhancing employability skills among the underprivileged youth.

The Tata Council will suggest addition of market-oriented training programmes to be disseminated among the youth through Livelihood Advancement Business School (LABS) centres of DRF.

These training programmes consist of three months of classroom training followed by three months of on-the-job training.

This includes academic inputs, theoretical concepts besides basic IT and spoken English skills. The sectors that are covered range from IT-enabled services and sales and marketing to micro entrepreneurship and finance and business.

LABS has its presence in 85 districts in the country and plans to expand to 280 within a couple of years. Around 68,000 people have undergone training from LABS centres of which 85 per cent have been employed, according to Anuradha Prasad, managing trustee, DRF.

The Tata Council will, therefore, provide knowledge support to LABS through employee volunteership and participate in market research activities and group discussions for curriculum development. It will also provide placement support.