Instilling Innovative learning among the youth, SWAN livelihood aims at Empowering the Youth

By:Reshma Jain

July 15 was declared as the World Youth Skills Day (WYSD) by the United Nations at its General Assembly held in November 2014. Youth Skills Day becomes more relevant when viewed in terms with the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) 2015-2030 as proposed by the United Nations for the peaceful and prosperous present and the future of the stakeholder countries.

Keeping in view the ever-increasing unemployment issue of the youth all over the world, the SDG- 4 is all about inclusive, equitable quality education and lifelong learning opportunities. Young people have the potential, energy and drive to bring in the transformation in the social patterns and the policy initiatives. Empowerment of the youth with necessary skills becomes a major objective towards sustainable development of the world and to make it a better place to live.

SWAN (Skilled Workforce Advancing Nation) Livelihood, a start-up based in Delhi is working towards improving the quality of the youth workforce through innovative training and counselling sessions.

The training programme is evolved after sustained field activity and intricate knowledge of the operations of the social sector enterprises. This mission aims to bring smiles on scores of youth and develop a congenial atmosphere in the workplace with satisfied employers.

As observed worldwide, during the Covid pandemic, the operations at the TVET (Technical and Vocational Education and Training) institutions came to a complete halt, impacting the job aspirations of innumerable youth and eventually upscaling the unemployment.

In this context, distance learning proved to be a viable solution for upskilling the youth in the current situation. To initiate this process, SWAN launched two new online platforms.

The Skillx_Aspirelabs is a series of specially designed workshops to upskill the youth towards the competitive professional environment. These sessions are aimed at acquiring a learning for life mindset and embracing innovative ways of doing things in a professional world.

The other platform initiated by SWAN is an art campaign with the name ‘SLEEPY EYE’. A pan-India art platform ArtxClimate Justice, India Chapter has been put up. It is aimed at bringing all artforms together on the wide canvas of the environment.

Observing World Youth Skills Day every year will act as a reminder to the policy makers about the goals proposed by the United Nations, says Meghna Joshi, founder, SWAN. 

Sharing the journey of SWAN with Socio Story, Joshi, said, “The past experience showed that there were youth who were unemployed, there were youth whose employment history had been short lived and there were employers who were either not getting suitable employees or whose experience with past employees had been miserable. All these situations required deep understanding and delicate handling of both sides.”

“SWAN saw a niche in bridging the aspirations of the youth as per the requirements of the industry. The underlying thought behind the entire venture was being to resolve the pain points of the youth from the poor sections of the society and train them for a harmonious and fruitful relationship with the employers,” added Joshi.

The innovative learning and training programme backed by numerous counselling sessions for students and their families enables them to bring out the best from every individual.

In a quest for attaining sustainable development, the SDGs-2030 which advocates technical, vocational education training (TVET), decent work opportunities for promoting inclusive and sustainable economic growth and providing help to young adults, the team at SWAN plans to diversify into e-learning programme so that they can impart skill based learning to many more students.

Concluding that they want to enable students to realise their full potential, Joshi stated, “Due to a huge impact on the retail sector and reduction in the employment opportunities, many students have been rendered unemployed. We are working on introducing new courses that would equip the students in need based on the new job requirements in the post Covid-19 scenario.”