By Chetanpreet K. Nilon
A far cry from the headlines of most newspapers which overflow with images and stories of Punjabi youth addicted to drugs, our team was introduced to the motivated and driven young boys and girls of ‘Youth Football Club’ (YFC), an international NGO located just off the Ludhiana-Jalandhar highway in Jalandhar district of Punjab. Our visit was to identify a possible linkage with this NGO as they are successfully working with rural and peri-urban youth by involving them not only in sports, but also community development activities. Employability, education, social integration, gender equality, health and environment, are the key areas in which YFC is working, all of which hold great relevance for Project TIGR2ESS. Although a small village, yet one surprisingly finds Rurka Kalan to be refreshingly modern in its infrastructure and working, with most of its progress facilitated by YFC. And most significant is that this development bears a strong imprint of the involvement of rural youth, especially females!
This reflects how such institutions can play a critical role in shaping the future of the country’s youth by filling the gap between government and citizenry in last-mile villages and adjoining areas.
The evolution of our intervention in YFC, Rurka Kalan has been a unique and enriching experience for both the YFC team and Skill Team, PU-TIGR2ESS.
YFC intentionally hires its own volunteers as trainees, thereby empowering them by providing employment and professional growth. Further, there exists a healthy gender-ratio substantiated by a female-friendly work environment. In our previous interactions with the staff, we observed that although most of them have technical degrees and diplomas, there exists a lack of awareness about modern workplace etiquette and do’s-and-don’ts of professional conduct. The management at YFC was also quick to acknowledge that this gap is an obstacle for these young trainees in presenting themselves as strong contenders for various employment opportunities. To enhance their employability levels, grooming them professionally was need-of-the-hour!!!
Having being recently involved in Soft Skills workshops for university students, Dr. Bhawna Gupta from the Skill Team, planned to initiate a workshop on similar lines for the beneficiaries of YFC. To overcome the handicap of the lockdown due to the second wave of the pandemic, it was decided to take up the challenge of conducting this workshop in online mode.
It is a notable achievement that we managed to achieve more than 90% participation throughout the 53 sessions, with more than 30 participants joining each session. As a side-benefit, it also acquainted them with modern-day professional online conduct and practices.
Our initial doubts about the efficacy of disseminating these intangible skills online to a rural audience evaporated when we saw them conduct themselves with confidence during the final mock-interviews. It was very inspiring to see how over the period of six weeks, they slowly overcame their hesitations and inhibitions and visibly became an active and interactive audience in the last two weeks.
We could see a gradual change in the knowledge and skill levels of the participants when they tackled practical tasks like preparing and delivering a 3-minute speech on staying positive during lockdown, grooming and presenting themselves for mock online interviews, learning how to keep a professional diary, and many others.
The search for suitable trainers who could design sessions in an interactive manner using a multi-lingual mode (English with Hindi or Punjabi) was yet another challenge. However, our efforts were well-rewarded as our unique initiative managed to gain the interest of leading faculty from well-reputed institutes like Thapar Engineering College and various other training institutions. Dr. Sanjiv Gupta along with Fulbright scholar, Dr. Gaurav Misra, painstakingly conducted individual mock-interviews of each participant. Motivational speaker, Dr. Simran Jaidka, piqued their curiosity by taking up concepts such as Emotional Intelligence in handling workplace conflict, and Effective Public Speaking. IITian Manujata Gupta updated them about the latest updates in formal communication and Resume/CV writing.
The participants received these sessions with a sense of curiosity and wonder as it opened their minds to these contemporary skills of self-improvement at workplace. For many of the participants, the concept of Soft Skills was new and the professional value of these intangible skills was realized by them gradually.
During the live feedback session, it was very gratifying to hear their coach, Sukhvinder Singh, express that this workshop felt more like a specialised course equivalent to a graduation with all the learning that they have gained.
The Thank-You video prepared by them for the valedictory session not only displayed their newly-learnt video-making skills, rather showcased their enhanced creativity and comfort levels in front of a camera by using an innovative mix of narrative and interview styles.
Thank You video prepared in lively interview-style by participants for PU-TIGR2ESS team
Partnering with YFC has successfully facilitated the PU-TIGR2ESS team in effectively accessing its targetted benficiaries by efficiently utilising an existing infrastructure and network in rural Punjab. This rewarding experience has motivated Team TIGR2ESS in PU to replicate these trainings in other institutions across the state.
All in all, it has been a great learning curve at every level for all those involved in the planning and delivery of this soft skills workshop.
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