Impact Assessment of CII's GLSDI (Grass Root Level Skill Development Initiative)

The past few weeks have been spent roaming around villages in and around the kancheepuram district, which include the tsunami-hit while NGO-rich areas such as Marakkanam or areas such as Lathur & Thirukkunakundram traveling around 3 hours in either state-transport buses or clumsy share-autos (across bumpy village roads) doing
the Impact Assessment of their GLSDI (Grass-root level Skill Development Initiative) program, which has been successfully implemented across 20 villages and trained around 3000 and odd rural youth; training them upon aptitude and job skills to make them industry-worthy.

And let me assure you, neither the travel nor the TN heat which show any signs of relenting have made it an easy assignment... but as always it is the warmth of the village folk, their simple ways and smiles which have always given us reason to believe in this assignment.

To cut it short, CII's SR (Social Responsibility) wing has started this skill development initiative; wherein it has developed an industry-standard training module to enlighten the Rural folk about the industry-trends and requirements and also provides them with aptitude and attitude skills development. This course typically runs for 10-15 days and NGO's such as Hand-in-Hand are hired (since only NGOs have easier accessibility to the rural folk and better credibility) to in the first phase command all the village folk and provide them the training.

We did our Impact assessment over three phases
Phase I : Visiting all the NGO's and then taking up the initial data of the rural folk being trained; this data would then be used for sampling.
Phase II : Developing a Questionnaire and also questions for the focus Group Discussion.
Phase III : Visiting the training centers and getting data from the trained youth, the current batch and the trainers.

Overall, our assessment proved to be really worthy for the CII cause it answered many of the questions that had been plaguing them (more so, with regards to the mentality of the Rural folk and how did they perceive to be the actual effectiveness of the course) and it was also a real eye-opener for us when it came to the workings of an NGO, rural mindset and the actual truth behind industries.

We first made our presentation across to the CII director Mrs.Stella and then were slated to present it to the Chairman himself.... the presentation will again be showcased in their industry meeting.

Our Presentation to CII can also be viewed here Presentation to CII.ppt (Be patient..)

Pic : Conducting the Focus Group Discussion in Lathur

Pic: In Marakkanam and Lathur