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In
August 2001, when Laxmi B. (she wouldn't spell out the initial)
turned 18, there was little to cheer. Daughter of modestly-employed
parents (her father worked at a printing press and her mother
packed cartons in a pharmaceuticals company), Laxmi had just been
forced to drop out of high school and help make ends meet. But
what kind of a job could a high-school dropout hope to get? A
little bit of seeking and asking led her to the Hyderabad-based
Dr Reddy's Foundation, which was running a Livelihood Advancement
Business School (labs). She applied to the school, took the aptitude
test, and got selected for training in customer relationship and
sales.
After three months of training, Laxmi found
herself a job with Ion Exchange as a sales trainee for direct
marketing of the company's water purification system. By the end
of eight months, she was already one of the top performers and
winner of the Chairman's medal. Today, Laxmi is back at labs,
not to train but as a centre coordinator responsible for one of
labs' six centres in Hyderabad. Apart from her administrative
responsibilities, Laxmi finds time to teach and train many other
underprivileged youngsters like herself. It's a job that fetches
her between Rs 7,000 and Rs 10,000 a month, but countless more
by way of satisfaction.
LABS' MENTOR STRATEGY
Central to the school's operations is
its strategy of involving volunteer mentors. They are of four
types: |
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Student Volunteer Mentors: Normally
para-professionals, management and social work students
who can spend significant periods of time on a regular basis
to work with the students and mentor them through their
individual career learning curves.
Faculty Vounteer Mentors: Usually
professionals (could be from various companies or government)
who can participate in curriculum development, design, quality
delivery and monitoring.
Network Mentors: Typically
very senior officials in business, NGOs and government bodies.
Resource Mentors: People
with social and professional network connections whose opinions
and references could open doors for potential resources.
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Laxmi, needless to say, isn't the only one
to have walked through the portals of labs and find her life changed.
There's Madhavi, a carpenter's daughter, who today is a data entry
operator at Bodhtree, a Hyderabad-based it consulting and product
development company; Subhashini, a 10th-grade pass whose troubled
marriage forced her to stand on her own feet, who is a "data
entry specialist". Then, there's Hashamul Hafiz, son of a
daily wage labourer, who runs his own electrical repairs shop,
making Rs 7,000 a month. In fact, in the last six years that it
has been around, labs, which trains people for about 150 entry-level
positions (see Jobs On Offer), has been able to create livelihood
opportunities for some 35,000 underprivileged men and women across
a wide variety of industries, ranging from financial services
to retail to ITEs to marketing. K. Anji Reddy, Chairman of city-based
Dr Reddy's Labs and chief patron of the eponymous foundation,
has set an ambitious target for the school: To create one million
livelihoods by 2010. Says Satish Reddy, MD and COO of Dr Reddy's
Labs and the Chairman's son: "We are investing in the future
and now want to take it to the next level."
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Taking note: A LABS roadshow in Bangalore
draws many hopefuls
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LABS, which calls itself a business school
because it trains people for the workplace, was first rolled out
in 1999, two years after it had been in place as a programme for
street children that taught them how to make candles, pickles
and papads, among other things. The latter model didn't work because,
as the Foundation realised, the emphasis was on employment and
not employability. Then, around 2000, some of the Foundation's
volunteers suggested that it try a different tack. Instead of
training people for cottage industries, the focus would be on
the services sector, which was beginning to boom. Thus, training
modules for data entry operators, animators and "route agents"
were created. The idea of route agents actually came from a Pepsi
executive volunteer, who suggested that youngsters capable of
driving their own vehicle could double up as sales people for
companies like Pepsi.
JOBS ON OFFER
There are six broad areas where a LABS "graduate"
can find a job. |
| Science & Technology:
From data entry operators to drivers to animators.
Health & Healthcare Services:
From hospital health workers to hospital administrative
assistants.
Hospitality Services: From
housekeeping to waiters to captains to front office assistants.
Finance, Business & Marketing:
From billing clerks to tele-marketing executives
to techno-marketers and route agents.
Communication, Arts & Humanities:
From assistant cameramen to graphics designers
to call centre executives.
Environment Resource Management:
From micro-entrepreneurs in sanitation to pest
controllers and vermi-composting.
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The response to labs from companies has been
enthusiastic. Color Chips India, a Hyderabad-based animation firm,
has not just helped train 22 such animation artists, but also
hired them on its payrolls. Pantaloon Retail has, in the last
three years, hired around 300 labs-trained people for its various
stores. Indian Hotels and ITC (Kakatiya Sheraton hotel) have hired
close to 80 people each. Then, Cafe Coffee Day has taken on close
to 15 labs graduates as customer service executives for its outlets
in the state.
Spreading The Good Work
Interestingly enough, the labs initiative
of Dr Reddy's has attracted the attention of others in the corporate
world. Some are already working with it, while some others have
expressed interest in using labs to further their CSR (corporate
social responsibility) initiatives. Some corporates actively involved
include TVS, Murugappa, Rane, Fair and Lovely foundation of HLL,
the Azim Premji Foundation and Microsoft. Then, there are governmental
and non-governmental partners, and bilateral and multilateral
agencies like the European Commission and USAID that are helping.
In Andhra Pradesh, for instance, labs works with AP Urban Services
for Poor (in a programme named Upadhi) and the Society for Elimination
of Rural Poverty (a project funded by the World Bank). Says Nazeen
Koonda, Communication Coordinator at Dr Reddy's Foundation: "labs
is now being recognised as a source for trained entry-level manpower
and corporates are now increasingly approaching labs for customised
training to suit their requirements."
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| A headstart: Students are trained in
workshops like this one in Karwar |
Today, labs operates out of 84 centres spread
across 11 states in India (it even has a presence in Vietnam and
Sri Lanka). By the end of this year, it hopes to be present in
16 states across the country, including J&K, and three new
countries (Indonesia, Nepal and China).
So far, the Foundation has invested close
to Rs 8 crore on the labs initiative. Those involved with the
initiative do not expect money to be a constraint going forward,
as the flagship programme enjoys unrestricted educational grant
from the Foundation. That apart, the partnership model allows
labs initiative to be taken to wherever there's a willing partner.
This year alone, 100,000 youngsters would be trained at various
labs initiative centres in India. In a country with around 36
million unemployed, that may not look like a big enough dent.
But it's a dent nevertheless.
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