More than 2,000 young people surviving in India’s urban slums are learning skills that lead to employment at six training centres supported by Trust partners.
The lives of young people and their families surviving on as little as £10 per month are being transformed through the Market Aligned Skills Training (MAST) programme that matches training with the needs of local employers. Trust partners Tesco Charity Trust, Vitol Charitable Foundation, Golden Tours, Lyca, Waterloo Foundation and St James’s Place Foundation are funding 300 hours of training over three months for young slum-dwellers at centres in Delhi, Jaipur, Gujarat and Chennai.
The Trust works in partnership with the American India Foundation to deliver MAST, a high-impact initiative that leads to jobs in information technology, sales, hotel management, office administration and other fields.
Rajasthan Royals’ bowler Shanthakumaran Sreesanth and Manoj Badale, Chairman of The British Asian Trust, saw first-hand how young people are learning new skills and earning better wages at a recent visit to the MAST programme in Jaipur. Watch the video of their visit to the Vatsalya MAST Centre here.
“I was very touched with what I saw,” said Manoj Badale. “MAST, supported with the generosity of our corporate supporters, makes such a huge impact on the lives of young people living in poverty by providing the skills that lead to gainful employment,” he said.
Alan Young, St James’s Place Wealth Management Group Partner, said: “We are targeting some of the most underprivileged people in the urban slums of India and equipping them to enter the world of employment. Many of them would have little or no chance in life. Anything we can give will help to change the lives of young people for the better.”
Josh Hardie, Tesco’s Head of Corporate Responsibility agrees: “Employability can make a tremendous difference and it has the potential to have a wider impact than just the immediate family. There’s a ripple effect,” he said.
