Tapping Into Financial Skill Development To Empower Rural India

Education is considered to be a basic requirement and a fundamental right for the citizens of any nation. It is a powerful tool for reducing inequality as it can give people the ability to become independent. Women who come from discriminative backgrounds particularly need this. You might be wondering why.

Education is regarded as an important milestone of women empowerment because it enables them to face the challenges, confront their traditional roles and change their life.

Educating women is a powerful tool to change their position in society.

However, during the COVID-19 lockdown, many girls were unable to pursue their studies and some were forced to drop out. Since classes were made online many girls dropped out of school because their families did not have a smartphone. Some homes had only one phone for everyone to share.

In some villages, young girls were forced into marriage as parents could not afford to look after them. Several reports show that even child trafficking rose to large numbers during the lockdowns. But such drastic activities are taking place only because of the financial instability that these families go through.

Life skills training

One way to give them a second chance at life is through improved training and skill development. This is critical for providing decent employment opportunities to the growing youth population. It is also necessary to sustain the high growth momentum of an individual.

The term life skills refer to any skill in your life that can be useful to earn a living. This includes creativity, critical thinking, problem-solving, decision making and the ability to communicate and collaborate. Having a life skill creates a sense of social responsibility that contributes to good citizenship.

Though life skills may be acquired through experiences at home or work, many citizens do not have the opportunity to access them. So it is important to identify the underprivileged youngsters and provide them with life skill training.

How does it benefit them?

● It helps them develop self-confidence.
● It gives them a voice in the community.
● It enables them to make a positive contribution to society.
● It prepares them with opportunities and improves their chances of employment.
● Makes them financially independent and breaks the cycle of poverty.

BharatCares, a non-profit organisation in India is working towards empowering the underprivileged. They strive to do this by providing education, life skills, and creating an entrepreneurial environment. Through their BFSI Skill Development Program, they have empowered 50 individuals.

Training and placements

The BFSI skill development programme is a placement-linked training program. It prepares class 12 pass students, final-year undergraduate and graduate students for jobs in the Banking, Finance Services, and Insurance sectors (BFSI).

The 45-day program focuses on equipping the students with the BFSI skills and relevant job-readiness skills to make them career-ready. The sessions are conducted by experts and are interactive. The program follows an activity-based learning model as well as an interactive learning model. The lectures are modified and made domain-specific for graduates and class 12 pass dropouts.

Students are taught about a variety of topics ranging from introduction to banking, the evolution of commercial banks, lending principles and loan policy to evolving trends in modern banking technology. To increase their exposure to the same subjects, visits are conducted to banks. So that students can learn about money deposit and withdrawal, creating a bank account and more.

Roshini Muthukumar

Roshini Muthukumar, a native of Chennai, started her career as a content writer but made a switch to journalism to pursue her passion. She has experience writing about human interest stories, innovative technology, entrepreneurs, research blogs, and more. Previously, Roshini has done internships with The Hindu, Metroplus and worked as a correspondent with The Better India.