WRIGLEY YOUTH EMPOWERMENT SUCCESS PROGRAMME
Initiated by Wrigley and implemented by Youthreach, the Youth.Empowerment.Success. (Y.E.S.) programme aims at providing employability training to youth in the age group of 16-24 in the spaces of English proficiency, life skills and an additional oral health component in phase two of implementation. These boys and girls are on the threshold of entering the employment arena which mandates acquiring job-oriented skills. The objective of the programme has been to ensure at least 60 per cent of the participants are placed or set up their own enterprise.

In Phase I between January 2008 and June 2011, the programme benefitted over 6000 youths in Delhi, Bangalore, Chandigarh, Mumbai, Udaipur, and Hyderabad. In fact, Youthreach overshot the target of 6350 students to reach out to 6407 young people in this phase.

Phase II which kicked off in July 2011 and will continue till December 2012. It targets out-of-school youth of 14-25 years enrolled for a vocational course with Youthreach.

Youthreach is partnering with seven local NGOs in Delhi, Chandigarh and Mumbai to impart:

• Workplace English lessons
• Life skills; and
• Piloting a new oral health education component, integrating dental health lessons into the existing life skills training manual
• ORAL HEALTH EDUCATION
  The oral health component introduced in the second phase of YES project has been a huge success among the beneficiaries which include their families as well. The youth have been educated on issues related to dental health. They have been also given kits, including toothpaste and toothbrush, so that they can implement their knowledge in the community through service learning projects. Along with attending dental camps, they have been able to undergo treatment which most times is neglected due to the expenses involved in dental treatments. Under the current phase of the programme, 1500 youth are undergoing the training.

MAX INDIA FOUNDATION
Youthreach has collaborated with Max India Foundation to conduct health camps with the community members of Nipun. Talks on reproductive health by a gynecologist to the women of the community and an immunisation camp for Nipun children have been part of the endeavour. A documentary on health and hygiene for the benefit of youth and children residing there has been also screened at the community centre.

BMC TRUST, AGRA
BMC Trust, a non profit wing of Bijli Mills Corporation, Agra is spearheaded by trustee Mr. Rajeev Lal who is an entrepreneur, social worker and philanthropist. The trust has engaged in philanthropic activities since its inception in 1950. Over the years there have been a lot of societal changes in the city of Agra The emerging changes and arising needs of the community around propelled BMC Trust to work at a more professional level for strengthening the community and develop towards its full potential.

As a first step towards the initiative, BMC Trust has partnered with Youthreach, for incubation of their first Project, where Youthreach will be assisting BMC Trust in the development and implementation of the project, for launching the project, Youthreach will provide multiple skills and different form of support for initiating the project. The project will focusing on enhancing the employability and entrepreneurship skills of the youth and women, The project aims at providing youth employability training, vocational training and computer education. Youthreach will work as a facilitator for the initial setting up of the project and will be assisting in making local partnerships with people and organisations.

UMEED
Youthreach has collaborated with various NGO’s working at the grass root level with an objective of reaching out to the rural population of the nation. With regard to the same, Youthreach partnered with “UMEED” an organisation based in Sangrur, Punjab providing primary healthcare and social empowerment. Taking into account the vast experience of UMEED in the field of social empowerment, the partnership was formed with an endeavour for developing strategies for intervention in order to create and develop livelihood opportunities for rural women.

As a step forward towards this initiative, Youthreach conducted a Livelihood Assessment in various blocks of Sangrur and Dhuri Districts of Punjab in October 2012. Ground level studies involving the beneficiaries were carried out by a specially formed team from Youthreach. The study involved the utilisation of both qualitative and quantitative data to map the livelihood system of the surveyed population. It included the use of an interview schedule to accumulate general information. The main aim behind the study was to analyse the existing livelihood system of rural women in the region and also to come up with various livelihood intervention strategies to address the issues related to women empowerment.

NOKIA OVI LIFE TOOLS PROGRAMME
Telecom giant Nokia and Youthreach partnered to use a user-friendly mobile phone application available on Nokia handsets to serve the common man from both rural and urban India. The service was implemented through nearly 2000 messages, each answering a question related to life skills and financial literacy.
Youthreach brought on board a content development company, Edulever, to develop SMS and GPRS messages for this innovative application, now being offered to those purchasing Nokia phones. Juggad Studio developed the images for the project. Altogether we developed 1850 SMS messages and corresponding GPRS messages along with 210 images as part of this innovative venture, aiming to sensitise and empower masses via technology.

BAXTER INDIA
Facilitated by Youthreach, Baxter India has encouraged its employees to contribute their bit to the community through events such as ‘Painting a Home’ and ‘Health Awareness’. Baxter employees painted two rooms in the Udayan Care Shelter Home following a painting workshop. They also volunteered for a day at the Literacy Education Centre in Palam Vihar where they took sessions on personal and oral hygiene and encouraged children to keep their surroundings clean and engaged with them in creating a poster on health and cleanliness awareness.

Youthreach also organised a city walk around the area of Paharganj and the New Delhi Railway Station for the employees of Baxter. The city walk is a guided tour, led by former street children who have grown up in Salaam Baalak Trust, and provides an insight into the lives of these children and an opportunity for them to improve their communication and speaking skills.

BOSTON CONSULTING GROUP
As part of the employee awareness initiative of Boston Consulting, Youthreach organised a series of three mentorship workshops for a group of young, potential job-seekers from Salaam Baalak Trust and Shine Foundation. The workshops were held by the BCG team on its premises targetting areas, such as personality development, work readiness, basic IT Skills, group discussion skills and personal interview skills. The overall objective of the workshops was to prepare the youth for their potential job opportunities. The BCG team is enthusiastic and looks forward to conducting more such workshops, so as to reach out to a larger group.

PRIME ELECTRIC LIMITED COMMUNITY DEVELOPMENT PROJECT
Managed by Youthreach, Prime Group launched a community development programme between 2010 and 11 in Menakuru village, Naidupet, Andhra Pradesh as part of which Youthreach conducted a need-based survey in the village. Consequently, Prime Electric adopted the Zila Parishad High School in the village.

ALCATEL-LUCENT EMPLOYABILITY FUND
The Alcatel-Lucent Employability fund was created in partnership with Youthreach with the objective of providing life skills, vocational, self-employment and employability training to a minimum of 1000 young people from disadvantaged communities in and around the cities of Delhi, Bangalore and Hyderabad. Under the partnership, Youthreach constituted an advisory board with representatives from the NGO sector and the corporate world.

Dhriti developed a curriculum on entrepreneurship called ‘Ek Naya Aasman’ and provided training across partners. Youthreach facilitated and monitored the programme across participating organisations. At the end of the programme, the partners had reached out to a total of 2,245 youth through programmes, such as vocational training and entrepreneurship. Of the total, over 65 per cent had found jobs, set up their own enterprises or had enrolled for higher education.

GENERAL ELECTRIC UDAAN LIFE SKILLS PROGRAMME
(2004-2009)
The GE Life Skills Programme was created to meet the need for soft skills for youth from disadvantaged sections of society in the age group of 13 to 20 years.

Over three phases (2004-2009), Youthreach supported the developing and imparting of a life skills curriculum to disadvantaged youth in the age-group of 13-22 in Delhi, Bangalore and Hyderabad. Under the partnership, 500 trainers from across 20 NGOs have reached out to over 23,000 youth.

JINDAL STAINLESS LIMITED
(2008- 2009)
In partnership with Jindal Stainless Ltd (JSL), Youthreach trained the staff of the JSL Foundation in life skills. The trainees were youth enrolled in the vocational training centre Prerana, and children from O.P Jindal School as well as Vidya Devi Jindal School in Hissar and Jhajpur.

Jindal Stainless Steel and Youthreach also partnered to sensitise JSL employees to social issues around disadvantaged and specially-abled children and environment. The goal of the programme was to raise the level of awareness so that they could get involved in making a difference in these areas. On the occasion of the World Environment Day in 2009, Youthreach organised and facilitated a day-long workshop with JSL to examine the impact of human beings on the environment and the steps that could be taken to preserve it.

PEPSICO
(2008-2009)
In partnership with Pepsico, Youthreach set up their first employee volunteering programme. Employees volunteered their time at the Arushi Home for girls in Palam Vihar which is run by Salaam Baalak Trust. Based on the skills and interests of the volunteers and the needs of the children, spoken English, art and craft and personality development were identified as volunteer projects.

INTERCONTINENTAL HOTELS GROUP
(2007-2008)
The Intercontinental Hotels Group, which owns, operates and franchises hotels, approached Youthreach to explore possibilities of a partnership in the area of corporate social responsibility in India and Nepal.

Youthreach set up a youth career programme and a food donation programme in IHG-managed hotels, such as the Crowne Plaza in Gurgaon, Holiday Inn Gem Park in Ooty and Soaltee Crowne Plaza in Kathmandu. Youth from disadvantaged communities were identified so that they could be trained and employed by the hotels in areas such as housekeeping, food and beverages and laundry.

Youthreach also designed a food donation programme under which the hotels donated food to orphanages, soup kitchens and old age homes.

HOME RETAIL GROUP
(2007-2008)
Youthreach, with Home Retail Group and Saher in Mumbai, implemented the ‘Khul Jaa Sim Sim’ programme to train youth in life skills, like self-exploration, communication skills, confidence-building, decision-making, building relationships and sustaining them, cooperation and creative thinking.

JLLM
(2007-2008)
In partnership with Jones Lang Lasalle Meghraj (JLLM), Youthreach organised a Leadership Roadshow to mark the launch of their CSR programme centred on environmental sustainability and employee volunteerism. The roadshow was kick-started by Peter Barge, CEO (Asia-Pacific), anchored by Youthreach and hosted in Sat Krishna Udayan Ghar in Narsinghpur village, Gurgaon. JLLM sponsored the creation of a herbal garden. Employees and children of Sat Krishna Udayan Ghar planted the saplings. JLLM sponsored the creation of a water harvesting structure in Udyan Care and also a vermi-composting pit to recycle kitchen waste into manure.

NOKIA TSUNAMI RECONSTRUCTION INITIATIVE
A team from the International Youth Foundation and Youthreach visited the Tsunami-affected areas in Tamil Nadu and Pondicherry in February 2006. The team met with various NGOs and CCFID was identified as an implementing partner.

Intervention in the area of life skills was made with the aim of providing skills to the youth to deal with the challenges of everyday life. The objective of the counselling programme was to provide psycho-social guidance to youth affected by the Tsunami, to enable them to identify their inherent strengths and set up their own businesses successfully. Youthreach commissioned the Dreamcatchers Foundation to develop the modules for the counselling programme.

Exposure visits were organised to the manufacturing units of AIS, Motorola, Parle Biscuits and Mando to enable the youth to experience business environments, gain an insight into workplace protocol and to widen their horizons.

IREO
Youthreach organised a material donation drive at the corporate office over Diwali in 2009 to distribute old shoes, toys, clothes and books for the children of Salaam Balak Trust Arushi Shelter Home in Gurgaon.

UKIBC
In partnership with UK India Business Council (UKIBC) and KPMG, Youthreach produced a brochure titled ‘An Introduction to Corporate Social Responsibility in India’. The brochure seeks to provide UKIBC members interested in investing in India a broad understanding of CSR in India and ways in which companies can engage successfully in community programmes. The brochure was launched by Naina Lal Kidwai, and Dr. R.K. Pachauri.

USAID
The Planning for Life project, ‘Samriddhi’, was launched in July 2009 with the aim to equipping 4200 boys and girls between 15 and 24 years in Andhra Pradesh and Delhi with accurate and age-specific knowledge to prevent risky behaviour that leads to poor health outcomes, such as unplanned pregnancies, sexually-transmitted diseases and unsafe abortions.

Resource materials were reviewed on issues pertaining to Adolescent Sexual and Reproductive Health (ASRH) before designing and developing a relevant and context-specific curriculum. After identification of partner organisations, tools for conducting need assessment were designed which mainly included conducting focus group discussions.