Career guidance counselling centres set up in Delhi-NCR will provide dedicated career services to young women seeking employment in the region.
The Counselling Centres, a first of its kind for women, builds on the findings of a UNDP commissioned study which revealed that almost 80 percent of young women in Delhi did not have access to accurate and timely information on educational and job opportunities.
According to Jaco Cilliers, Country Director, UNDP India, “By bridging the information gap, career counselling centres that address the specific needs of women and girls seeking employment, can play an important role in empowering women and building their confidence to secure jobs in the formal labour market.”
The Centres will be run by the Self Employed Womens Association- Bharat, the All-India Federation of SEWA within the Pankh Program of the SEWA Yuva Shakti Kendras in Delhi. The first such centre was inaugurated today by Sairee Chahal, co- founder of Sheroes.in.
Dr. Sanjay Kumar, Director, SEWA Bharat said, “This programme will help many young women across the city learn more about options available to them and how best to take advantage of these opportunities. We believe this programme will change many lives by providing a vital and desperately needed service in a systematic and holistic manner.”
The career counselling centres are set up as part of a collaboration between UNDP, the IKEA Foundation, Xyntéo, and the India Development Foundation which aims to impact the lives of women in India through training, entrepreneurial skill development and employment.
In order to bridge the information gap, the Pankh Program will address three key factors in the community that hold back women from securing employment opportunities:
(i.) community presence,
(ii.) information,
(iii.) support structures.
By having a strong community presence, the project aims to change local perspectives on the public and professional spaces that young women can occupy. The programme will host all-female career fairs, and organize graduation ceremonies in the community. In order to increase access to information, underprivileged girls across the city who enter the center will be able to access comprehensive career counseling opportunities, advice from career counselors, psychometric mock-testing, information on job and educational opportunities. The last pillar of the SYSK is a community-based support programme. All together, these programs will equip young women with the tools to navigate the professional workspace, as well as with the knowledge on how to maintain a work-life balance.
The physical centres will be complemented by a cloud-based platform which provides services such as work readiness e-learning, comprehensive mapping of the opportunities existing in the vicinity of the center (job opportunities, availability of skill development courses, training institutes and government schemes, etc.) and direct links with the private sector (job vacancy announcement, mapping of the private sector in the area, possibility for internship / apprenticeship / immersion, job fairs, etc.) The goal of these programmes is to assist young women in pursuing careers rather than simply jobs.
SEWA Bharat will be opening three centres across the Delhi-NCR region. Two of the centers will be based in SEWA Bharat’s existing communities: New Ashok Nagar and Sunder Nagri. These community centers will act as hubs and resource centers within the local communities. The third center, a central counseling unit, will be accessible to any woman across the Delhi-NCR region who is interested in learning more about careers, and other work-related information. This center is being initiated in collaboration with the All India Women’s Conference who has generously donated their premises for the cause.
Contact Information
For SEWA: Divya Sooryakumar, divya@sewabharat.org, +91 8288913563
For UNDP: Nandita Surendran, nandita.surendran@undp.org; +91-9810084776
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