Kaitlin M. ILR'22, Policy Research at GRAAM

    For the past six weeks, I have been working with the Grassroots Research and Advocacy Movement. With the help of my mentor, Ananya Samajdar PhD, I have created two factsheets with a focus on skill development programs in South Asia. The first fact sheet explains the importance of Deen Dayal Upadhyaya Grameen Kaushalya Yojana (DDU-GKY), an unemployment and skill development program in India which aims to assist young people living in rural areas. The second factsheet examines Bangladesh’s National Skill Development Policy (NSDP) which is another unemployment and skill development program geared towards marginalized groups in rural locations. Some large differences between DDU-GKY and NSDP are that NSDP emphasizes the role of apprenticeships and Industry Skill Councils, organizations that continuously research skills in demand. These aspects could be worth implementing into DDU-GKY to give beneficiaries flexibility in how they want to complete the skill development program.

    Through this process, I have learned a lot about employment barriers to young people living in rural areas. Before this program, I did not think about how the inability to access transportation, subpar and sporadic wages, as well as gender norms can exclude many young people from the workforce. Working with GRAAM has shown me ways in which DDU-GKY can target these barriers. For example DDU-GKY can expand their skill development training to encompass skills used in handicrafts, a predominantly female-driven field. DDU-GKY can also implement something similar to NSDP’s Industry Skill Development Policy so that beneficiaries are being trained in skills that are in demand. The photo associated with this blog post shows a DDU-GKY course in action. Beneficiaries are learning valuable lessons about skills that will increase their employability. Overall, I feel that this experience with GRAAM has shown me skill development strategies that can be applied to other developing nations looking to improve the skills of their rural workforce.
    

I am incredibly grateful for this experience to work with SVYM and GRAAM because I have learned so much about skill development and ways to ameliorate employment barriers for young people in rural areas. Aside from knowledge gained from my formal projects, I have also been able to communicate across cultures and timezones. The COVID-19 pandemic has disrupted the entire world and I am appreciative of SVYM and GRAAM’s efforts to facilitate a virtual experience for all of us students. I sincerely thank them for their efforts to replicate an in-person experience to the best of their abilities.