This past summer I had the pleasure of working with Swami Vivekananda Youth Movement’s Socioeconomic Empowerment Program (SEEP). I worked with the SVYM’s livelihood center in Kenchanahalli and was tasked with creating various curriculums for the center’s livelihood programs, ranging from plumbing to beautician work. These curriculums not only included vocational training for each profession, but also prevocational modules to encourage participation in the specific programs and post vocational modules to encourage entrepreneurship after training.
In order to create these curriculums I first had to understand the history and needs of the communities I was working with. My mentor explained that the tribal communities that these livelihood programs are targeted towards were displaced either when their native land was deemed a national park or when the government began extracting resources from specific pieces of land. As a result, individuals within these communities lost their livelihoods entirely as they were reliant on the land. I also had to understand that there were barriers to participation in these programs, like household responsibilities and gender norms. This information helped me develop the prevocational and post-vocational modules of my curriculums
After I gained a background on the communities I was working with, I had to do research on the skills that each vocational training required. There was some baseline information available on the resources available in Kenchanahalli, but I had to research other curriculums that were used in similar livelihood programs to frame my curriculums.
Although I was working remotely, I came to find this experience with GSL and SVYM extremely rewarding. I left the experience feeling like I understood the necessity of not approaching service from a savior perspective and rather understanding that real change has to be sparked from within marginalized communities. I am very glad that I participated in this program and got to work with SVYM as it is such a unique development organization, emphasizing the need to develop social and human capital to initiate change.
