Youthreach CSR Avenues of Engagement

As part of the Corporate Programme, Youthreach helps businesses identify CSR interests and match them with critical community needs to develop high-impact programmes. Positioned as a bridge between grassroots NGOs, we have a range of projects and based on corporate priorities and development needs, the team at Youthreach designs, facilitates, and manages projects that are need based, collaborative and sustainable. Through our CSR programme, we have been able to reach out to more than 70,000 children, 5000 women and 5 lakh members of the community in more than 170 villages.
Youthreach employs awareness initiatives and uses as instruments volunteering, material contribution, capacity-building, training and employment, sponsorship and financial resources to sensitise the corporates. We believe CSR to be an opportunity for a company to make a difference to the lives of its employees, their families and the larger society. Well-intended and practised CSR is a philosopher’s stone of sorts for the business that enhances the latter’s abilities to recruit and retain staff, address the sustainability of the company, protect their reputation, create goodwill amongst stakeholders and build customer loyalty.

YOUTHREACH‘S CORE AREAS OF INTERVENTION AT A GLANCE

Youthreach has five major programmes namely Corporate Programme, Sports Programme, Volunteer Programme, Knowledge Bank and Awareness Programme under which it is working on the following issues.

1.COMMUNITY DEVELOPMENT

Youthreach is implementing its community development projects under the CSR programme of various corporate houses and contributions from foundations and philanthropists, in Haryana, Uttarakhand, Himachal Pradesh and Madhya Pradesh. Youthreach is supporting 45 villages in Rewari (Haryana), 38 villages in Roorkee (Uttarakhand) and 9 villages in Nalagarh.. Through this programme, our community outreach has been to more than 70,000 children, 5000 women, 5 lakh community members covering more than 170 villages.

As part of its Integrated Community Development Programme, Youthreach is working on the following thematic areas.

A. EDUCATION
Youthreach runs non-formal education centres for the rural youth enrolled at various government schools and for those who have dropped out of the formal school system. Under the programme, Youthreach provides tutorial support to secondary school students to help them appear for their board examination and also tutors drop-out students, providing them academic support and ultimately mainstreaming them back into the formal education system. In order to promote girl child education in the rural areas, Youthreach is providing school bus service to girls from villages, enabling them to attend senior secondary schools located in the city or block level.

B.WOMEN EMPOWERMENT
The women empowerment project at Youthreach aims at broadening livelihood options for the rural women, by the process of forming Self Help Groups and linking them with the local banks and proving credit for initiating entrepreneurial activities. Adult literacy programme has also been initiated for women to improve their literary skills and to help them acquire basic knowledge and skills of numeracy, reading and writing. These skills help the women run their entrepreneurial activities in an effective manner.

C.SKILL DEVELOPMENT
Youthreach has initiated digital literacy programme and stitching& embroidery courses for the rural youth with special focus on girls. The digital literacy programme aims to equip the rural youth with basic and advanced employability focused computer skills. Youthreach has partnered with Intel and NIIT for the implementation of the Digital literacy programme.

Youthreach provides rural women and girls with stitching and embroidery skills as part of livelihood support programme. The programme also helps the girls start their own income generating ventures post course completion.

D.WASH INITIATIVES
Youthreach is working intensively in the Water sanitation and hygiene interventions for the rural areas. Through this programme we aim to put an end to the practice of open defecation, bring about a behavior change modification of the beneficiaries and ensure availability of basic sanitation at the educational centres to help girl students continue their education. Youthreach has helped to build toilets at individual households and educational centres, and renovated toilets at schools and educated the students about cleanliness and hygiene. Youthreach is also working intensively in the process of providing safe drinking water to the children enrolled at the various Government schools in Uttrakhand and Himachal and villages in Haryana.

E. HEALTH INITIATIVES
Youthreach has worked intensively in the area of providing health care services in both rural and urban settings. Following are the health care initiatives undertaken by Youthreach.

1. Health Camps on General Health, Women’s health related issues and Immunisation Camps
2. Eye camps for scanning cataract
3. Youth Dental Programme.
4. Adolescent Reproductive and Sexual Health
5. Trainings on Substance Abuse

2.YOUTH EMPLOYABILITY

Youthreach has done extensive work over the last 7 years in the area of youth employability by identifying the factors that undermine the chances of disadvantaged youth finding jobs. After conducting extensive research two gap areas were identified. These were Life Skills and Spoken English.

Our Youth Employability programme aims at providing training to youth in these very gap areas. The training is provided to youth in the age group of 16-25 who are on the threshold of entering the job market and are undergoing training in vocational skills.

The Workplace English Programme is meant for young adults undergoing Vocational Training courses. The curriculum has 70 lessons, totalling to approximately 90 hours covering topics like conversing with a first time acquaintance, introducing oneself, describing one’s family, writing a resume, etc..

The Life Skills programme instils soft skills among the youth which help youth make informed choices, communicate effectively and develop coping and self-management skills that help them lead a healthy and productive life. The curriculum has 65 interactive lessons.

Career Counseling
The career counseling programme has been designed in a workshop format and is geared towards youth from the disadvantaged section of the society in the age category of 16-25 years.The programme aims to enable the youth in understanding how their values, skills, interests, passions, and world outlook influence their career decisions and also help them set their future goals. The workshop is highly interactive and includes discussions, case studies, role plays, exercises and activities.

3. TRAININGS AND WORKSHOP

Trainings and workshops are an integral function of Youthreach. Youthreach has several Master Trainers who conceptualize, design and conduct trainings and workshops on various topics directly linked to the organization’s development and area of work. To name a few, Youthreach conducts trainings on

• Workplace skills- Life skills and workplace English
• Adolescent reproductive health
• Appreciative enquiry
• Leadership and Team building
• Facilitation skills for trainings

4. ARTS AND APPRENTICESHIP

Youthreach works with children who face the disadvantage of limited exposure to the creative arts. Through the arts and apprenticeship programme we engage with renowned artistes who volunteer to open up for our children new vistas in the creative and performing arts, dance, music, pottery, theatre, sculpting, photography, puppetry, baking, cooking and more, so that they may acquire or hone a skill. Over the years, Youthreach has reached out to over 1000 children through its different programmes.

5. SPORTS PROGRAMME: YOUTH FOR SPORT

Youthreach started a Sports Programme called ‘Youth for Sport’ to give disadvantaged children an opportunity to play sports as any other child. As a part of this initiative, Youthreach has started a squash training programme from March 2013 for both boys and girls in the age group of 9 to 17 years at the DDA Squash and Badminton Stadium, Sirifort Road. The objective behind this program is to provide an opportunity to underprivileged children to learn a new sport through professional training and to develop skills that could give the children an opportunity to pursue the sport as a career option.

6. VOLUNTEER MANAGEMENT

1. Individual Volunteer Programme Youthreach through its volunteer programme mobilises, sensitises and places National and Foreign volunteers with its partner NGOs working on issues of children, youth women and the environment.

2. Employee Volunteer Programme

We also work with corporates to design and implement both short and long term employee volunteer programmes.

7. AWARENESS INIATIVES

Through this programme we seek to raise awareness on critical social issues. We reach out to people using media that communicates effectively – events, publications, email, films, talks and presentations. Typically through our awareness programme we reach out to more than 10,000 people each year.

8. CONTENT DEVELOPMENT

1. Need analysis or need assessment studies
2. Content development
3. Conducting and documenting research work
4. Awareness initiatives such as writing, printing and publishing content, designing books, annual reports, newsletters and similar materials and producing films.

Our corporate partners
AIS, Alcatel-Lucent, Apeejay Group, Argos, Asahi India Glass Pvt. Ltd., Auro Sugar Pvt. Ltd., Avantha Group,Balarampur Chinni Mills, Barista-Lavazza, BILT, BYDF, Bhutan, Baxter India, Boston Consulting Group,BMC Trust, Agra , Chanana Welfare Foundation, Dhampur Sugar, Mills, Dominoes, General Electric, Good Earth, HPL Additives, ITC Group, Indag Rubber Private Ltd., Intercontinental Hotels Group, Jindal Stainless Steel, JLLM, Lady Bamford Charitable Trust, Leela, Kempinski Group, Max India Foundation, Nokia, PepsiCo, PS Bedi Group, Prime Electric Limited , ReNew, Power Energy, Sandhar Locks, Selan Oil , Sun Group, Surya Brasil, Taj Group of Hotels, Standard Chartered Bank, Unipatch India Private Ltd., Umeed, Wrigley, Yum Restaurants Ltd.