90-day course gives tips for better livelihood

An initiative of Dr Reddy's Foundation, it grooms youngsters to face the world.

At first sight, 19-year-old Farida, who works at a Pizza Hut outlet in Delhi, is indistinguishable from the millions of other youngsters who are working in the service industry. She is, however, different. The "Yes, Maam" that she says with just the right accent is not the result of the usual school training. She got her lessons in social skills and English during a 90-day training programme in her village in Kashmir.

The programme was put together by Dr Reddy's Foundation (DRF) "" a sister concern of the Dr Reddy's group which undertakes social responsibility initiatives "" and financed by the Ministry of Rural Development.

The training programme dubbed as "Livelihood Advancement Business Schools" (LABS) has covered 100,000 youngsters across the country in its six-odd years of existence. There are four skills that each student is trained in during the three-month process "" communication skills, computer skills, soft skills and technical skills. No fee is charged from the students.

"The maximum effort goes into imparting the soft skills," says Minu Abraham, the head of strategic planning at the foundation. Since most youngsters that get into LABS are school dropouts, they lack confidence and social grace. The LABS programme gives them both, in addition to technical skills, of which there are about a dozen to choose, ranging from patient assistance to appliance repair.

The programme started in Andhra Pradesh (where Dr Reddy's is based) and is today active in 13 states. The initial thrust for the programme came from DRF.

"Companies contribute to curriculum development, hire the LABS pass-outs or simply fund the programme. We have 27 such corporate partnerships," says Abraham. Partner companies include HSBC, HDFC Bank, ICICI Onesource, Mc Donalds and Java Green.

Farida, the beneficiary of this course, relocated to Delhi after she found a job in the city. She cleared class 10th exams and now her aspirations are no different from any city-bred girl. "I want to do MBA," she says.

She has been working at Pizza Hut for the last 16 months. Seeing the programme's ability to change the lives of many, the Ministry of Rural Development has decided to make LABS its flagship livelihood programme under what is being called "Grameen LABS".

In a Rs 62-crore initiative of the ministry, this programme will be replicated across all the states of India to generate 125,000 livelihoods (about Rs 5,000 per livelihood), says Abraham. There will be some changes in the programme to suit rural India.

The programme, spearheaded by Anuradha Prasad, daughter of Anji Reddy, has gone global. It has been adopted in Sri Lanka, Vietnam and Indonesia.