The YES Centre India project was launched in September 2017 and completed by April 2021. The project aimed at empowering girls and young women by strengthening their vocational skills in the garment and fashion industry sector and their voices for economic self-reliance to take a leadership role in poverty alleviation initiatives in the Bellary district in Karnataka state. Over the last three and a half years, the project contributed to developing the technical and management skills of over 400 women for enhancing disaster-resilient income opportunities. All the trainees and further women from rural communities completed additional training in entrepreneurship, women rights and community-based disaster management skills and were equipped with business skills, rights awareness and self-confidence.

The inauguration of the project took place in September 2017, when the Don Bosco training centre Hospet was renovated and an exclusive training wing for the YES Centre project was set up. For better implementation of the training and in order to provide the trainees with more individual attention, the students in each batch were divided into two groups of 30-35 that received skills training simultaneously. The trainees had six hours of training every day, six days a week.

The YES Centre also organised exposure and industry visits for all the trainees. They got the opportunity to visit different garment processing units in Bellary city, where they experienced different processes of garment making as well as entrepreneurial qualities of successful entrepreneurs in the garment industry. After the completion of each batch, job placement drives were conducted, where many companies from the Bellary district were invited to the YES centre to conduct job interviews and skill appraisals and to recruit the eligible candidates from each batch. In addition, four days of Entrepreneurship Development Programme training was organised for all the students of the YES Centre in order to enhance the entrepreneurial, leadership, communication and business management skills of the trainees. This was followed by the support for the women entrepreneurs to set up their self-employment units or micro-enterprises.

The YES Centre India project has successfully empowered marginalised women in terms of skills, education, gender equality, decision making and economic development so that with the completion of the project, more than 80% of the trainees were either placed in jobs or started their self-employment units.

Project Background: 

It’s predicted that the Republic of India will become the world’s third largest economy by 2030. It plays an important role in world politics with its major industries in motor vehicles, shipbuilding, chemicals, telecommunication, computers and software development. Furthermore, India is the seventh largest country in the world and possesses a great diversity at all levels, be it in regard of religion, society or language. With a population of over 1.3 billion people, India is the second most populous country in the world, preceded only by China. However, out of this 1.3 billion people, around 25% face extreme poverty and have to live on less than $1.25 a day.

Not only does India face various environmental issues such as air pollution, poor management of waste, water pollution and land degradation, it has also been affected by a severe economic recession as a consequence of the COVID-19 pandemic, which has left millions of people jobless. Marginalised citizens have been affected the most, as they faced unequal access to healthcare and were pushed into deeper poverty as a result of strict lockdowns. With a staggering 74 million people living in slums without access to running water and sanitation, the COVID-19 pandemic pushed an additional 75 million people into poverty last year (who live on $2 or less daily), which accounts for nearly 60% of the global increase in poverty in 2020.

On a social level, India faced an illiteracy rate of 22% of the entire population in 2020 that has particularly been affecting women from poor areas. To increase the literacy among young women, HOPE’87 has implemented the YES Centre project in India, which aims at enrolling marginalised young women in youth skills training in order to empower them and to strengthen their voices for economic self-reliance and to take responsibility of their own lives.