By Thomas Scaria
Belgaum, March 7, 2020: Devaki Vishwanath Gali ekes out a living making bamboo baskets at home and selling them at weekly market.
The woman from the outskirts of Belgaum says basket weaving has been her family’s traditional job for generations, but she never received recognition or appreciation until an NGO entered her life.
“Today, I am a successful entrepreneur with 12 other village women working with me. We supply varieties of village products starting from mobile pouches to cloth bags,” Davaki told Matters India in early March. The ban on plastic bags has increased the demand for their products.
Her “business” began looking up after she joined “Skill Net,” a national network of unorganized skilled workers promoted by the Functional Vocational Training and Research Society (FVTRS), the Bengaluru-based NGO.
Devaki is among thousands of village women empowered as entrepreneurs with more social and economic security through the Skill Net. They are the success stories for the International Women’s Day on March 8.
Jimmy Mathew, a Catholic lay man who coordinates the NGO, says the rural India is filled with highly skilled workers who are neither recognized nor empowered, but highly exploited.
“Today, it is difficult for the people in informal sector to remain relevant as job market demands certified skill workers for various sectors,” Mathew told Matters India.
According to NGO reports, 92 percent work force in India is unskilled although they work in fields that require special skills.
Mathew, a native of Kerala, travels around villages in Karnataka to identify masons, carpenters, painters, toddy tapers, drivers, traditional artisans, agriculturalists and others. He then organizes them as small groups and enrols them into the Skill Net.
The Skill Net is the association of skilled workers. It provides strong community based structures of skilled workers and trainees and has the potentials to create networks of skilled workers associations at different levels, Mathew explains.
“Skill Net provides recognition and reputation to them and enhance their social and economic status, especially for the traditional skilled workers,” added Mathew, who had earlier worked for Caritas India, the social arm of the Catholic bishops in the country.
The Skill Net groups will be engaged in regular meetings to discuss training, enterprise development, government schemes and other related issues and matters related to their development. Thus, they will become community based structure that sustain and enhances the interventions.
At present the society, FVTRS, has 1,708 such associations with a membership of 21,385 skilled workers with savings of 12,292,614 rupees. It has started 61 new enterprises. The movement is spread to 12 States in India so far.
A wide range of skilled people whether it is pot maker, blacksmith, traditional artisans, construction work etc. are being recognized through skill net. The Skill net groups captures and recognizes the conventional, non-conventional and unique skills of skill net members across the country.
The Skill Net groups function like self-help model where the skilled workers will get an opportunity to pool their talents, capacities and their little money for bigger results. Today, there are around 61 micro collective business initiatives by the skilled workers in various parts of the country.
The platform of Skill Net is emerging as a unit recognized by the local panchayat (village council). It also mobilizes government assistance through various existing schemes.
Besides promoting Skill Net groups, the society has focused on providing employable skills to the underprivileged school dropout youth for the past 25 years.
The vocational training programs are designed to make them eligible for employment within a short period of training. “As of now we have trained over 130,000 youth, said P M Philip, FVTRS executive director.
“Employability and entrepreneurship of the human resources of a country is the key factor for her economic growth”, said Philip who pointed out that providing the right type of education incorporating the employable skills and entrepreneurship to the right people at the right time is important.