From a child labourer to a masterful puppeteer, Shamim has come a long way. Some years ago, the young runaway at the Salaam Baalak Trust met KS Radhakrishnan, the famous sculptor, under the Art Apprenticeship Programme of Youthreach. Later, he would train with renowned puppeteer Dadi Pudumjee and, in the process, learn to pull well the strings of his life.

People like Dadi Pudumjee and KS Radhakrishnan volunteer under the Youthreach Volunteer Programme which opens to many children like Shamim a whole new world of life skills, arts, crafts, sports and entrepreneurship which is otherwise denied to them.

Any individual or organisation can be our volunteer and skill lesser advantaged young people in reading dancing, singing, cooking, computing, painting and more.

For both the volunteer and the NGO, Youthreach charts the way on which the two converge for mutual realisation of aspirations and goals.

As our core programme, volunteerism has three KEY OBJECTIVES:

• create a volunteer ethic in and promote a culture of volunteerism in civil society and NGOs working on issues such as children, women, disability and the environment
• impact the communities that NGOs work with; and
• lead to the creation of informed and inspired group of volunteers from diverse backgrounds

Youthreach aims at matching the skills and interests of volunteers with the needs of our partner NGOs in ways that are beneficial to both. The programme rests on ensuring that the volunteer finds the best match for her / his skills and the NGO the best resource person for an identified gap.
Youthreach has a user-friendly portal that directs volunteers to options best suited for them. On the one hand, Youthreach provides links to extensive volunteer opportunities. On the other hand, we undertake country-wide volunteer management workshops to build capacities of grassroots NGOs in becoming effective volunteer managers. At any given point in time, we have over 200 volunteering options listed on the portal available with close to 40 of Youthreach Partners. These options are updated every two months.

Supported by Sir Ratan Tata Trust, Youthreach undertook a study to understand the strengths and challenge areas of two key stakeholders – NGOs and volunteers. The study looks at the impact of volunteerism on volunteers as well as on communities served by NGOs; factors that motivate volunteers to give their time, skills and energy free of cost to a cause and ways through which they find opportunities to volunteer. The study also looked at understanding volunteer management systems in NGOs such that volunteering is a mutually beneficial relationship.

Read our case study on Best Practise in Volunteerism

VOLUNTEERISM
Over the years, Youthreach has facilitated several volunteer projects that range from teaching children and doing capacity-building workshops for NGOs to apprenticing children in music and art by engaging with people in the creative fields. We have reached out to over 2 lakh disadvantaged children and 40,000 needy women through this programme.
Youthreach conducts volunteer management workshops for partner NGOs in order to build capacities as effective volunteer managers, to enhance their appreciation of volunteers and to utilise the volunteers’ potential productively and efficiently.