Context

 

Save the Children is the leading independent child rights organization that fights for children’s rights and delivers immediate and lasting improvement to children’s lives worldwide. Their Vision is to work for:

This project is the part of the greater mission and is commonly known as “Capacity Building Program for Domestic Child Workers”.

As a part of this project 200 Child Domestic Workers have been identified across Kolkata metropolitan who would go through the entire program. They would be trained for securing meaningful employment in the Personal Care/Beauty segment. Till now about 86 children have undergone 3 levels of training in the following areas – basic beauty course, advanced level beauty course along with behavioral / soft skills training. Ultimately, the goal is to help these girls find employment in beauty salons/spas and similar opportunities.

To spearhead the entire project, Save The Children wanted to work on developing basic communication, social as well as personal confidence, develop positive attitude, handle conflict, etc. amongst the children.

What brought us together


Initially Save The Children wanted to invest only on functional training, not being sure as who would soft skills training add value to the CDW project. Through series of meetings we were able to present our value proposition for the project as strong social skills and personal demeanour are requisites for the staff in Beauty Salons. We were able to establish credibility by sharing our case-studies on the various types of interventions done in the industry and outcomes derived from the same. Finally, they agreed that soft skills training would be the integral part of the curriculum. They earmarked 24 hours of training per child, to be conducted in time spaced format.


Target Participants

Adolescent girls in the 15 – 18 age group with varying degrees of formal education; ranging from without any formal education to some having completed upto class 8. Delivery had to be in the local Bengali language as majority of the participants are unfamiliar with English.

They are mostly slum dwellers, came to stay in Kolkata Metropolitan from nearby villages / states.

 

The Challenges

• The children are all from underprivileged homes, often without access to basic necessities.
• They have low self-esteem and morale, often victims of oppression and abuse. Special care was needed for this reason.
• They have no expectations from life, having seen the dark side all their life.
• They are inhibited in communication, being used to rejection and scorn, with strong mother-tongue influence (‘cycle’ being pronounced as ‘ishycle’, ‘sister’ as ‘sheeshtar’ etc.).
• They have low general awareness levels.
• They lack direction and sense of purpose.
• Keeping in mind the above. the biggest challenge was how to motivate them to find a meaningful career in the beauty industry.

Expectations & how we did it

• The first sessions were devoted to building trust, to create the supportive atmosphere.
• The next part was on identifying the ‘why’ – why did they come for this training, what use will it be to them in the future.
• The emphasis in the program was on application of Dale Carnegie Principles, with particular emphasis on ‘Begin in a friendly way’, ‘Let the other person save face’, ‘Praise the slightest improvement and praise every improvement...’, ‘Give the other person a fine reputation to live up to’.
• Individual attention was provided to each participant through counseling and mentoring sessions.
• Attention was also given to proper pronunciation of words, using Bengali rhymes.

Results achieved till now

• Understanding of the need for change, to learn new ways of doing things.
• A sense of self-direction, the need to take life seriously to contribute to their and their families’ well being.
• Benefits of results through application, driven by activities, rhymes, games etc.
• Courage and determination to look at the future positively.
• The ability to face the world with a new sense of confidence in themselves.
• The business relevance of what they did, to empower them in their vocational training to become ‘expert beauticians’.
• Beyond everything, a sense of victory that they were able to make significant changes in their lives.
• Almost all participants were able to achieve personal breakthrough results. A special mention may be made of Geeta Ram, who broke down and started crying out of nervousness at the start, during introductions, then went on to record such breakthroughs that she won the ‘Highest Award for Achievement’.
• At the Recruitment fair in Kolkata, all participants have been offered a job in some of the well known beauty parlors.