Background Note
Urivi Vikram Charitable Trust is organising
its Third National Seminar pertaining to
Young people (aged 10-24 years) on Wednesday, May 6, 2015, at Conference
Room-II (Main Building), India International Centre, Max Muller Marg, New Delhi
- 110 003. First one was held in 1999 on the theme ‘Towards a Policy for Young
Adults’ and the Second one in 2005 on the theme ‘Adolescents: Vision 2020’.
The theme of the seminar is “Demographic Dividend: Challenges for
Young People in India”. Policy makers, Scholars and Activists from
multi-disciplinary background across the country will participate in
deliberations with an aim to propose a set of doable recommendations for youth
development in India.
The Objective of this Seminar is to:
Ø Take stock of the policy frameworks on youth development
opportunities;
Ø Explore potentials of young people for economic and social
progress for a common future;
Ø Review the policies that enable young people to participate and
lead economic and social development of the country;
Ø Analyze the problems and needs of young people highlighting the
core issues, including education, health, mental health, crime, role of
parents, teachers and other stakeholders in guiding them.
Ø Develop roadmap for the development and empowerment of the young
people in the context of targets set to achieve by the year 2022.
The expected outcome of this Seminar is to:
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Forge a network of the policy makers,
implementing agencies and other relevant stakeholders in translating schemes
into operations.
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Develop collective mechanisms to
study and take stock of the progress of youth development at regular intervals.
Context :
Demographic dividend is the accelerated economic growth that results from decline in infant and child mortality, and consequential rise in the number of young population - usually 14 to 30 years - in a country. This is accompanied by an increase of the people of the working age-group (14-65 years), creating opportunity to have less number of economically dependants at household levels. Ratio of working age to dependent population in South Asia is expected to increase for the next 15-20 years followed by gradual downturn. India must utilize the available time for proper nurturing of the younger generation, irrespective of men and women, to make them productive work force.
India has resounding growth policies and programmes in place. Besides the conventional growth policies, the country is making all-out effort to benefit from digital technology. The Government of India has recently taken steady steps to build skilled work force in the country. Under the National Skill Development Council (NSDC), over 32 Sector Skill Councils have been made functional. They work independently and in partnership with the governments and the private commercial enterprisers, to augment the skill development programmes across India. The Government of India has made skill development not a programme but a movement. The target is to provide training and skill development to 500 million youth in the next five years. The Government of India hopes to make the country self-sufficient with skilled personnel to cater to all existing and emerging market demands by the year 2022. India expects to have surplus skilled work force who can contribute to build up global economy.
However, India has not been able to fully reap the advantage of its large stock of population of workable age. Industries, on the other side, are struggling with scarcity of skilled workforce. Progressive actions are needed to take care of future basic minimum living standards including food, water and energy of this promising workforce. Investing in young people, by providing education and employable skills, is critical for their effective utilization. Of late, various governments in India have started looking into this aspect seriously and endeavored to create job opportunities by diversifying industry and encouraging young people’s entry into the work force. They are not so successful yet to enable the young Indians take a smooth transition from academic pursuits to livelihood engagements due to several roadblocks. This is especially important for young girls because appropriate management of family planning and reproductive health is critical for their proactive participation in the work force. Notwithstanding enormous opportunities, India is facing challenges to create marketable avenues for its demographic resources.
This seminar will elaborate in detail on the perspective of the Young People as demographic dividend and discuss their holistic development and challenges. The Seminar will attempt to explore how we can avail India’s advantage and draw a way forward for more informed mechanisms to take stock of youth development in India.
Urivi Vikram Charitable Trust
(UVCT) in Nation Building
When on the one side, new economic
opportunities are offering better livelihood options and the governments are
making needful policy shift to reduce the curse of unemployment, and on the
other side, the ground realities are progressing at slow pace, Urivi Vikram
Charitable Trust feels that taking stock of the situation of Democratic
Dividend through a National Consultation is crucial. There is a need to
critically assess the challenges and opportunities for the dividend that
increasing demographic stock offers to the country.
The third National Seminar to be held on May
6, 2015, is the reiteration of UVCT’s determination to empower the young people
of India and partner with the governments, civil society organizations and
corporates to ensure that this ‘demographic dividend’ is translated into the
productive asset of human resource. A look at employment, education and skill
status of the youth of India would indicate that, perhaps, the country is
losing a great opportunity to utilize dividend optimally from the potential
demographic stock in the country.
Formation of UVCT
and Activities
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Urivi Vikram Charitable Trust
(UVCT) established its credentials to uplift young adults both by direct
intervention in skill building as well as by instilling self-confidence and
self-drive in them, through psychological counseling and career guidance,
besides putting them through Life Skill Education. Alongside, a number of
vocational training programmes are also undertaken.
UVCT, a national level NGO
with 23-years standing, and a registered society (Certificate No. 26392 of
1994), is having functional chapters in five states, Delhi, Haryana, Andhra
Pradesh, Maharashtra and Karnataka. It has been pursuing a mission to
strengthen not only economic productivity but also social responsibility of
Young People (age group 10-24 years). UVCT is deeply involved in all aspects
relating to development of young - from direct intervention by running
programs to highlighting issues at national policy making levels. The
programs of the Trust cover (i) Life Skills Education; (ii) Livelihood
generation ; (iii) Psychological Counseling and Career Guidance; (iv) Women
Empowerment; (v) Reforming and Rehabilitating Children-in-conflict with Law;
(vi) Financial Support for bright students
from poor families. The UVCT’s motto has been to find ways and means
to transform India’s ‘Burden of Population’ into an ‘Asset of Human
Resources’. It advocates and endeavors to promote holistic growth of young
people who are the future of the nation.
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National and
Regional Meets on Young People
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UVCT took a pioneering advocacy
campaign, along with several other NGOs and governmental organizations, for
appropriate development of adolescent population in the country. Its
initiative came at a time, to be realistic, when very little was done on the adolescent
agenda. In a bid to overcome this serious omission, a National Consultation
was held on “Towards a Policy for
Young Adults” in 1999. The outcome of the Meet was compilation of an
Advocacy document for a “National
Policy for Young Adults”, which was submitted to the Government of India
and the Planning Commission of India. Based on this document, the Planning
Commission of India constituted the first ever Working Group, by including
UVCT as a Member, which brought out a “Report
on Adolescents” (2001). In continuation to
this initiative, UVCT organized a Regional
Seminar in 2002 on “National Policy on
Adolescents”. It resulted in the
first exclusive Scheme of Financial Assistance for Development and
Empowerment of Adolescents, in April 2014, with the Ministry of Youth Affairs
and Sports as the nodal agency (Unfortunately, the Scheme lost its identity
and got subsumed into National Programme for Youth and Adolescent
Development(NPYAD). However, UVCT’s relentless persuasion and campaign culminated into a joint action by the government
agencies and the private organizations in holding the second National Meet in
2005 on “Adolescents : Vision 2020”,
in a bid to identify the demand-supply gaps. Various government, bilateral
and donor agencies have since eventually incorporated adolescent concerns in
their policies and programmes for their development.
In
2007, the Urivi Vikram Charitable Trust founded the National Centre for
Adolescents (UVNAC) at Dwarka, New Delhi, and carried forward its mission to
champion the concerns of the young people.
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Other notable
endeavors of the Trust
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The Trust organizes Careers Melas in Delhi and various
other places of the country. The Trust has conducted studies on a wide range
of issues related to adolescents and young people. The project Shakti was launched with an avowed
objective of harnessing the enormous energies of school dropouts. The UN
Inter Agency Working Group on Population and Development while evolving their
programme on “Life Skill for Health Promotion of Out-of-school
Adolescents”(2002), graciously accepted
that it was on the basis of Shakti programme of UVCT. Skill development has been made the prime
focus of the activities in all its Centers spread across five states of
India.
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Click for invitation card.
For further details/clarifications,
you may kindly contact H.R. Bangia Director (Coordination) at h.r.bangia@gmail.com (09811326670) or Rinu
Suresh Nambiar (Seminar Coordinator) at rinusureshonly@gmail.com
(08527276778).
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