October 2009 will remain firmly etched in the memory of Kamini Koshi for a long, long time. That month she was forced to resign from her job because her employer had to downsize and she became another victim of the raging global recession. Just a statistics for the world, this undergraduate lady who is the sole breadwinner in a family of seven residing in the suburbs of Mumbai was entirely clueless about how to make the ends meet.
The same month she found Vedanta Foundation!
The placement team in Vedanta Foundation saw her potential and swung into action. After two rounds of interviews she has landed a much better job with a pay packet that is over 40 per cent larger. She is overjoyed for being rescued from the spectre of joblessness and penury and at a loss of words to describe her gratitude to the foundation.
However, for the placement team at Vedanta Foundation it is just a job well done, like so many others that they regularly log every day. Ask Sangram Goilkar, Swapnali Wadhe, Mujahid Shaikh or Pratik Shirke and their story is as joyous Kamini Koshi. And the thread of happiness is the Vedanta Foundation that has bound the lives of 9 lakh persons in the same thread in its 17 years of existence.
Established in September 1992 the foundation has blazed a trail of social and economic empowerment of weaker sections that must be a source of envy to many older and well reputed organizations.
The Chairman of Vedanta Group, Anil Agarwal, takes active interest in the functioning of the foundation where his wife Kiran Agarwal is an Executive Trustee. “Vedanta Foundation believes in empowering the society to fulfill its obligation, towards all the strength, the intellect and the resources that it has built and obtained in its long journey. We at Vedanta believe that the word empowering defines a broader spectrum of responsibility which holds the key to uplift, educate, strengthen and bring about an optimistic path which leads towards achievement and faith,” says T Ravi Krishnan, CEO, Vedanta Foundation
The footprint of the foundation is spread across 24 of the 29 states in India and is not confined to only the areas where the group companies are operational. The computer literacy projects are still at the core of its activities. With a large emphasis being placed on computer literacy skills in the labour market, it has become important for the less privileged to be assisted in acquiring these skills. Since the start of Vedanta Literacy campaign, a large number of youth have availed of the basic computer courses offered by the foundation at its computer centers spread out across India. At the conclusion of the courses, exams are conducted and certificates are awarded to the students. The Foundation currently operates more than 315 such Literacy Centers. Recently it has signed a MoU with Government of Maharashtra to provide for computer aided learning in 3,590 schools where the foundation provides E-learning content, computer books, and teachers training and ensure close monitoring of the project. The annual budget for the computer literacy project is around 2.5- 3 cores.
In the process of providing training it was noticed that the trainees still need support to negotiate their way through the minefield of selection process by employers whose requirements varied from each other. The foundation realized that without proper placement their job remained half done. Vedanta Foundation strongly believes that providing quality training to the under privileged can not be an end by itself and the beneficiaries must be provided with the basic job opportunity. Keeping in mind the imperative of placing as many students as possible, the foundation set in motion a new project called Vedanta Job Assistance programme.
The Vedanta Job Assistance Program (VJAP) focuses on providing appropriate job opportunities to the less privileged unemployed youth.
The VJAP team is constantly in touch with the prospective Industrial or Corporate employers to explore job opportunities for the unemployed youth.
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