Is Vocational education & skill development is your concern? We have this project to enhance the employability of disadvantaged and poor adolescent girls, youth and women through vocational and skill development trainings. The project directly supports adolescent girls, youth and fisher women from poor background. This project will work towards lack of awareness and poor implementation of government schemes and skills and training opportunities among youth and adolescent girls through improving skills of unemployed youth, adolescent girls and women through vocational and skill trainings.
Executive Summary
Unemployment is one of the burning issue among youth. Due to lack of right skills, the poor people unable to utilize the available local resources. The poor people includes the fisher folk communities forcible migrating to different places in India and working as a daily labors, construction workers, cooks, brick workers and daily wages. The girls and women physically and sexually harassed by brick owners and contractors. They are living in slums, getting very low wages and infected by HIV/AIDS also. Based on the problems, community request letters, ABC designed a project proposal in association with community partners with the motto of “Building skill Creating Opportunities. The overall objective of the project is to enhancing the employability of 200 Nos disadvantaged and poor adolescent girls, youth and women through vocational and skill development trainings. The project directly supports to 200 Nos beneficiaries from poor background includes adolescent girls, youth and fisher women from 15 Nos coastal remote villages. The activities mainly includes Vocational and Skill trainings on Tailoring, Mobile repairing, Welding, Electrical, Driving, Fish pickles making, Fish vending and other fish value added products with the expertise support from training agencies and resource persons from xxxx. After the training, the trainees will placed in various companies, and established micro enterprise to enhance their employability as well livelihood security. In long run, the project will establish training center and Self Help Cooperative to be promoted for marketing, financial and non-financial services to the poor people. To achieve the project objectives, Executive Director and four operational team and financial Rs. xxxxxx will be required. Out of 20% budget will generated as People & Organization Contribution and remain 80% resources expecting from the funding agency (Rs. xxxxx). The xxxxx also play vital role in monitoring and evaluation of project activities. The experienced Executive Director is fully responsible for planning, implementation, monitoring, evaluation and timely reporting to donors of this project.
Project Proposal
Implementing Organization Profile
ABC is a nonprofit community based organization working towards women empowerment, education and livelihood promotion. ABC aspires to improve the living conditions of the poor and marginalized by adopting strategies through community initiative, participation and sensitization. Promoted by xxxx in 2000, the organization has worked among backward communities in the interior unreached pockets of coastal Odisha, identified as one of the most under developed states in India. Women self-help groups have been taken as the base for all interventions and livelihood activities enabling them to contribute towards mainstream development process.
Project Holder Profile
Background of the Project
Odisha occupies 4.75 percent of India’s landmass and accounts for 3.46 percent of the country’s population. The state comprises 30 districts, 58 subdivisions, 314 blocks and 51,048 administrative villages. As per 2011 census, the population of Odisha is 4,19,74,218. The overall literacy rate is 72.9 percent and the female literacy rate is 64.36 percent, which is below the national averages of 74.45 percent and 64.36 percent, respectively. With a coastline of 480 km along the Bay of Bengal, Odisha accounts for 8 percent of the coastline of India. Odisha’s coastline is shared by six coastal districts including xxxxx and the length of xxxxx coastal line is 60 kms.
The socio economic situation:
Women play an active role in day to day survival of the coastal fishing communities but unfortunately their contribution to the fisher sector remains unnoticed. Fisher women are actively engaged in fish processing and marketing after the fish harvest. They bear the double burden of work for the market and for the house hold. The fisherwomen of xxxxx are illiterate and they do not have any other skill than selling fish. Increasing competition for scarce fish resources makes it difficult for women to procure fish. Fish vending is a difficult occupation in the absence of transport facilities, which compel women to walk 8 to 12 km a day with heavy loads of fish on their heads. Lack of alternative income generating opportunities in the coastal communities reduces the opportunity cost of labour to the point where they continue to be employed within the fishery in spite of very limited returns. Women are involved in all the shore based post harvest activities such as handling, sorting, grading, gutting, drying and marketing. More than 70% of fisherwomen in the area are engaged in fresh fish marketing.
In the proposed target area, 60% of the youth mass, women and adolescent girls migrating to xxxx, Mumbai, Chennai and Goa for alternative livelihoods. The main causes were poverty, lack of employment, food insecurity and financial problems. The migrated youth and male population are working as a daily labors, construction workers, maid servants, brick workers, electricians, welders and guards and earning very low income. The adolescent girls also working as cooks in the hostels, made servants, construction workers, small factories earning Rs. xxxx to xxxx per month, which is not sufficient to meet the family requirements in the cities. They are living in slum areas in shed houses and effected by deadly health diseases especially HIV/AIDS. Due to high migration in this operational area, xxxxx having number one position in HIV/AIDS in Odisha. While interacting with the poor women, it came to light that, few adolescent girls and women are sexually harassed by the owners at their work place and even not getting their wages also in right time. Due to lack of skills and capacity they are engaging as security guards and other non-productivity activities. The earned income also not sufficient to meet the meet the day to day expenses of the family. The children also migrating to the parents, leaving their studies and engaging in labor work to earn xx to xx from the construction work.
Problem Statement
To identify and priorities the problems, ABC conducted a need assessment among the target area, and CBOs. Discussions have also been conducted among the PRI members, local NGOs and district level traditional marine fish workers union.
Lack of skills and training opportunities among youth and adolescent girls
After passing the 10th class, the students were unable to join in higher education. Due to financial crisis, they are unable to undertake vocational and skills trainings. In nearby cities inside and outside the state, plenty of job opportunities available. But skilled and efficient man power not available to meet the existing job demand in the market for various trades likely driving, welding, mobile repairing, electricians but skilled manpower supply not available to meet the current demand. Due to poverty, forcibly the poor youth members migrating to cities, converting daily labors, earning low wages and affected by HIV/AIDS.
Lack of financial and marketing linkage, inadequate systems and techniques to support fisher women micro enterprises Fisher women often undertake two types of fish related micro enterprises
Fresh fish vending in local Markets on daily basis and
Dry fish processing and selling on weekly basis.
These enterprises are profitable. However, due to lack of proper storage and techniques in processing both fresh and dry fish, women end up selling their products underpriced. For instance, fisher women selling fresh fish cannot store fish even for a day due lack of cold storage, which forces them to sell fish for lower price towards end of the day.
Fisher women depend on the traditional dry fish processing till today. This impact on the quality of fish processing and contributes to wastage. There are various hygienic fish processing techniques available such as dry fish processing using solar dryers. However, due to lack of awareness and finance, fisher women never exploited these techniques to improve their micro enterprises in a profitable manner. Women mainly undertaking dry fish enterprises have to restrict to only one market place where traditionally fish has been sold once in a week. They never get the opportunity to explore other markets beyond the existing one due to lack of marketing support. There are other fish related micro enterprises such as fish pickle making, which has not been explored to its full potential. Although the demand for such kind of products is huge, women did not emphasize much on this venture due to lack of skills and marketing opportunities.
Lack of awareness and poor implementation of government schemes
Given the poverty scenario, a number of poverty eradication measures have been initiated by the government, mostly central government supported programs. For improving the standard of living of the poor, state intervention in the form of implementing antipoverty programs, elimination of hunger schemes, Employment Assurance Scheme (EAS), Public Distribution System (PDS), Integrated Child Development Scheme (ICDS) and Midday Meal Scheme have been introduced. All the above schemes are aimed at improving the living conditions of the poor by directly involving the appropriate target groups. However, this programme is not directly included related to vocational and skills development and not reaching to the poor people due to lack of awareness.
Lack of capacity building, skills and strong community based institutions
Many SHGs among coastal fishing communities have difficulty in accessing these resources because they lack voice, confidence, basic administrative skills and capacity and capability in negotiating with, and accessing support from rural banks, resource and marketing agencies. Fishery women groups are either defunct or are functioning at very low levels of potential. Quality of bookkeeping is generally reported to be poor. Substantial numbers of poorer households are outside of the SHG fold. Lack of capacity building activities for SHG and Cooperatives in the field of vocational training and micro enterprise promotion. The lack of financial resources and access to sources of credit needed for investments in productive assets, to meet operational expenses and to cover consumption needs during periods with little or no income is among the major problems and livelihood constraints identified by members of fishing communities.
Project Design
The initiative was originated at the target communities. During filed visits and community meetings, the villagers approached ABC and requested to undertake development projects on vocational and skill training in the form of request letters. ABC community volunteers conducted social research using tools, problem identification, problem prioritize and problem tree. Based on the priority of the need and demand from the community, ABC has taken this initiative to design a community based vocational and skill development project for sustainable development of fisher women, youth and adolescent girls in coastal villages of xxxxx in active support of xxxxxx on sea.
Goal of the project:
‘To enhancing the employability of 200 Nos disadvantaged and poor Adolescent girls, youth and through vocational and skill Trainings in remote coastal villages of xxxxxx “
Risk and Assumptions:
The following are some of the assumptions for successful implementation of the project
There is no major natural/manmade disasters affect the target area during the project period as the target area is prone to cyclonic storms.
The political scenario in the target communities does not change significantly.
There is no radical change in government policies with regard to livelihood entitlements.
The financial institutions continue to support SHG movement with financial resources.
Expected Outcomes:
15 Nos community need assessment will done on skill development and vocational trades
40 Nos adolescent girls will be trained on tailoring and engage in self-employment for income generating
30 Nos poor youth members on mobile repairing will be trained and will be place in various companies and repaying shops also.
20 Nos poor youth members will be trained on welding and will be placed
30 Nos poor youth members will be trained on driving and will be placed in various offices earn Rs. xx to Rs. xx per month
20 Nos poor youth will be trained on Electrical and will be employed to earn Rs. xx to Rs. xx per month.
20 SHGs members will be trained on fish pickles and will establish Fish Pickles Business under Self Help Cooperative model to increase 30% of their current monthly income
40 SHGs members will be trained on fish vending and other fish value add products and will establish Fish Business under Self Help Cooperative model to increase 30% of their current monthly income
One fisher women Self Help Cooperative will be promoted for marketing, financial and non-financial services.
Approximately 5 lakhs grant / loans will be generated from NABARD, Banks and other financial institutions.
At least 80 persons will be placed in various industries and companies.
At least 100 Nos Micro enterprises will be established for income generating activities.
One tailoring center will be established.
60% migration among 200 families to be controlled.
Project Target Area
The project will cover 15 coastal villages Odisha.
Target beneficiaries:
The number of direct beneficiaries of this project would be 200 members from coastal villages of xxxxx. The annual number of indirect beneficiaries would be 200 families. Along with more than 70 jobs to be created through this trained beneficiaries. The beneficiaries belong to Schedule Caste (SC) and Other Backward Castes in the target villages.
Project duration: The duration of the project is one year.
Project Implementation Strategy
The project will be organized in three phases:
In 1st Phase, ABC will cover formation of core team, Orientation and training, design of course curriculum and pedagogy, area study and selection of training partners.
In 2nd phase, ABC will give more focus on organizing quality trainings to selected beneficiaries on vocational and skill development by using local resources. The trainee should contribute 10% of training fees with the aim of cultivating ownership and sustainability of the project. After selection of beneficiaries, the training to be conducted as per the training calendar.
In 3rd phase, ABC will conduct placement activities for the trainees and build financial and market linkage for establishment of micro enterprises at community level for self-employability.
Activity Schedule
Estimated duration of the project is 12 months (1 year). The following is the activity schedule of the project.
Strategies
Forming a Core team, orientation and training: Forming a core team and give orientation towards the present project. The core team consists of a Project Coordinator, one Account cum admin assistant and 2 community organizers. During this, the staffs will give necessary materials for their understanding and make a syllabus for the vocational and skill development training.
Designing of Course Curriculum and Pedagogy: The training programs comprising of two segments i.e. classroom and practical field work. The course wise curriculum will be designed in association with experts from the industries based on market demand and aims at integrating experiential practical learning in the field and theoretical understanding in the classroom. Along with continuous personality development for the trainees is undertaken with the support of outside agencies / professionals to groom the trainees before final placement. The learning methods will include observation, discussion, action, presentation and examination. Pre assessment, midterm assessment and final assessment to be conducted at project level as a part of monitoring and evaluation. After the final evaluation, the certificate to be awarded.
Area study: The project staff will conduct area study of 15 villages for selection of trainees. The trainees were identified and selected by each concerned village development committee.
Eligibility and Selection of trainees: Any poor person is eligible for this training based on trade. People with disability and BPL members will be prepared. Application forms are available in the project office, with Community Organizers and can be downloaded from the website. The Project Coordinator is available for any query related training. After collection of applicants from meetings, staff and trainees, the Project committee will call trainees for group discussion and personal interaction. Based on interview, the candidates to be selected and informed.
The general criteria of selection trainees will be
They should be from the same village
They should have basic interest and zeal for the their development
They should be free from other work obligations for minimum of six hours
They should be literate with minimum of 7th standard in order to make effective communication except for fish pickles and fish vending training.
For fish pickles and fish vending, the trainees should from the existing Self Help Groups.
Partnership with Training institutes: ABC will organize trainings in association with training institutes in the local area to enhance quality of training and minimize cost at project level. Minimum three quotations collected from the experienced training institutes as per the course design. The training institute to be selected in procurement committee based on quality and legally Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) to be signed with training partner with strict guidelines.
Training on Tailoring: The objective of training is to build vocational skills to the adolescent girls who dropped their higher education due to financial problems in coastal areas. The duration of the training is 3 months will provided in a participatory method by a hired experience resource persons at ABC training Centre with 50 theory and 50% practical. ABC will establish training Centre will have 10 machines will all tailoring assessors and provides all supports for practical support. After the training, the trainees will start their own micro enterprise ‘Tailoring Centre” and engage in other enterprises to generate income from ***** to ***** per month at community level. After the project completion, the tailoring Centre will run by the ABC with grant support from funding agencies or reasonable fees will charge to trainees to manage the day to day expenditure of the Centre.
Training on Mobile Repairing: The primary objective this training is to enhance the skills on mobile repairing of the unemployed rural youth age between from 18 years to 30 years. The duration of the training is 4 months will be organized jointly in association with local level mobile repairing training institute. Every day theory and more practical classes will conduct for better understanding. After successful completion of the training, the trainees to be placed in various mobile repairing companies. ABC will facilitate for financial linkage from Banks, financial institution and District Industry Centre (DIC) to interested persons to start independent mobile repairing centers.
Training on Driving : The objective of this training will be improve the driving skills of interested 30 youth ( male) members, age between 18 years to 30 from the project area. The one month training will be provided in association with driving training institute. After training, the certificate and four wheeler licenses will be given. ABC will be facilitated to place in various organizations salary range between Rs. xx to Rs. xx. Along with, financial linkage from banks also provided to procure four wheeler and start their own micro enterprise for self-employability.
Training on Welding and Electrical: The objective of this training will improve the technical skills of poor youth (male) members, those who completed their matriculation. Three months training will organize in association with a training partner (ITI) and certificate will be provided. The 40 trainees will be easily placed in various companies and earn ranging from Rs. xx to Rs. xx per month.
Training on Fish Pickles, Fish vending and other value added products: ABC will organize training will be organized to existing Self Help Groups of marine fishing communities at central level. 20 interested trainees will be selected from marine fishing communities by the existing self-help groups for fish pickles trainings. The resource persons to be invited from xxxxxx. ABC also plan to organize training on fish vending and other value added products to 40 women from fishing communities selected by the SHGs. The resource persons will be invited from xx and xx to enhance their skills and knowledge. After the training, financial and marketing linkage will be strengthened to promote micro enterprises at household and community level in the operational area.
Procurement of sewing machines: The project will procure 10 Usha Flora sewing machines @ Rs. xxxx.00 per machine for tailoring training. The Usha Flora having features like multifunction sewing machine will do embroidery, straight stitching, button sewing, zip fixing, satin stitch etc. The Usha Flora also has features Blind hemming, Cording, Quilting, Picot made easy for home stitching, Flat hemming, monogramming, Options for motorized and manua. Three quotations will be collected, comparative statement prepared. Based on quality and price and other services, the procurement decision will be taken.
Material, Human resources and Budget: The project will require a computer with printer & modem for communication and official documentation purposes. The project will procure 10 sewing machines procured for establishment of tailoring training institute. However, no construction work will be required as the units will be set up at the community centers. ABC has not received any commitment / donations or contributions from any other donors for this particular project. This is the first time ABC is approaching xx for support. The local contribution equivalent to cash is reflected in the summarized budget sheet below.
Human resources: The Executive Director, appointed by the Board of Governance, represents the organization in all legal and contractual obligations. He will also be responsible for implementation of the project and reporting to the donor in all project related matters. He will appoint project staff, develop project work plans and review project progress on regular basis. He will be responsible for project accounting and reporting till end of the project. He will not get any remuneration from the project and voluntarily contribute for project planning, implementation, monitoring and evaluation. In addition, the project will require four full time paid staff (including a Project Coordinator) for implementation of the project. The project Coordinator will manage day to day project operations and report to Executive Director
Monitoring and Evaluation
ABC will commit to follow up the project from the moment work has commenced and will send quarterly reports to donors up until three months after its termination. In addition, the project will establish a project monitoring plan based on the project log frame for internal monitoring and evaluation purpose. The monthly activity plans will be derived from the project monitoring plan. ABC will develop appropriate reporting formats for collection of project information on a monthly basis. Monthly project review meetings will be organized to review the progress and these meetings will be facilitated by the Project Coordinator. Proceedings of each monthly review will be recorded and kept for future reference. In addition, the project will form an executive committee consisting of the following members:
Executive Director of ABC
Project Coordinator ABC
Staff from local NGO ( xxx)
Two members from the community
The executive committee will undertake project reviews after every six months of project completion in line with project monitoring plan. The project reviews will focus on review of project progress, challenges encountered during previous semester and achievements. It will guide the project team to plan for the coming semester and helps to resolve issues that may be causing delay in achieving the targets. It will also analyses the financial achievement of the project. Agreements and decisions of the project reviews will be documented for future reference. The xxxx will give support inform of monitoring and evaluation of the project.
Towards end of the project an external evaluation is planned by external resource person. The evaluation will assess the impact of the project as per initial project framework. It will also identify the gaps and provide recommendations to be considered for similar future projects. In case, donor agency commits to undertake the external evaluation of the project, then the project will reconsider the budget for the evaluation activity. However, ABC will appreciate a communication in this regard.
Sustainability
Socio cultural sustainability
The behavioral and attitudinal changes brought in by the project among the local communities particularly by the youth and women will empower them to actively participate in decision making in all other future activities. Women will come together in a common platform to discuss their socio cultural problem bringing changes in age old social habits. The project will significantly affect the lives of Self Help Group members of fishing communities in their income generation activities, livelihood security and self-employability thus bringing in the much needed confidence among them helping them move forward towards development. Their active participation in decision making process, community based planning; monitoring and evaluation will bring in an ownership of the project. Once the external funding is over, ABC plans to continue the project from income generated from the SHG federation and the external support received from Government programmes and other agencies.
ABC will continue to play an active role to facilitate the SHGs to establish a strong link with government schemes and projects so as to generate the required assistance. Internal income will be generated in form of membership fees, donations and revenue generated from community based institutions. Similarly reasonable percentage of revenue will be generated from small scale fish processing unit, fish pickles unit and tailoring training institute. The project will build local capacities to increase livelihood opportunities for women in the target communities. This projects will motivate the unemployed youth and girls to start micro enterprises at local level as well as controls the migration.
Economic Sustainability
The federation, on the completion of the project will raise its own funds through membership development fees, interest charged on micro credit, processing fees of micro loans, benefit events, grants from the government and donor support. The revenue generated from the income generation activities will cover the cost of operating expenses in future. During these three years, the groups will mobilizes savings, establish linkages with Government and NGOs, and try for financial assistance from Bank and other financial institutions. After the project ending, all youth and adolescent girls will engage actively in income generating as well as self-employability enterprises. They can support their family members in education, health and livelihood development activities.
Technical Sustainability
The staff will have the capacity in form of skills, knowledge and equipment to manage the project and continue the activities. All technical services will be made available to the beneficiaries on fees basis. The computer and the printer used for the project by the ABC will be handed over to the federation after the completion of the project to be used for their accounts and documentation purpose.
The project will promote a federation of SHGs with objective of sharing information, conducting training, providing financial and non-financial services to its members. The SHG federation is a network of several SHGs from the operational villages. Every SHG will nominate one member (President / Secretary of the group) to the general body of the federation. The general body will select executive committee consisting of seven active women members to manage the day to day activities of the federation. ABC will undertake several trainings on organizational development, leadership and financial management of the federation. So finally the federation will be responsible for technical management of the impact of the project after completion under the active guidance of ABC.
