CHENNAI: I was like a stone on the wayside, today I am like sculpture. This statement by M Mohandhas (23) perhaps best sums up the work done by Aide et Action, an NGO involved in skill training and finding employment opportunities for the young underprivileged people from slums in and around Chennai.Mohandhas was born to parents who are salt pan workers. Today, he works with the F&B unit of Kipling Café, a predominantly expat hangout on the ECR, while he continues his undergraduation at the Poonga College of Arts and Science during the morning hours.Mohandhas said, “After my Plus Two, I came to Chennai looking for a job. One of my friends told me about this NGO that trains students and school dropouts and also helps them find employment. I got trained in the F& B (Food& Beverage) course for four months. After that, they helped me find a job. Today, after four years, I have worked in a few big hotels in Chennai, including Savera. Now I earn Rs 10,000 a month. I completely owe my new life to the trainers. They are now my new family.”For any onlooker, Micheal (19) would look like a Funky college student sporting smart sneakers, skin tight jeans with ear studs and a hair styled with gel. Micheal’s father does some odd job at the Koyambedu market. After Plus Two, his family situation didn’t allow him to go to college. At Aide et Action, he was trained to be an ITES professional. Today, he works with Moore Offshore Call Centre earning Rs 7,500 a month.He said, “A year before, I was like any of those youth idling on the roadside. Though I wanted to be a computer professional, I was limited by my family situation. Thanks to the grooming and exposure given by the trainers here, today I can walk into a mall or any office space with confidence and can talk to anybody. The most important thing I have acquired coming here I would say is style.”Aide et Action, through one of their projects, provides employability skill training to the marginalised youth through Institute for Livelihood Education and Development (ilead). It has so far trained 13,000 youths from the Chennai slums in the age group of 18 to 25 years.Sivagami, Regional Manager, Aide et Action, speaking to Express on the sidelines of the induction of their new batch for training, said, “We started this project in Chennai in September 2005. So far, we have trained around 13,000 young people and managed to find jobs for 75 per cent of them.”Young people who are not able to continue their education but who have completed either class 10 or 12 are trained in certificate courses like in hospitality, customer relationship and retailing, ITES, electrician and plumbing, mechanic (two-wheeler and automobile) as per their basic interest.Every stream has 50 students and in a year, they have four such training sessions and each module lasts for four months.They are also given spoken English training, which gives them the much needed communication skill, said Rebecca, the Spoken English trainer. She added, “Most of them come from Tamil Medium. We start from the scratch.”S. Yuvaraj (20), son of a widow who did tailoring to support her son from Kundrathur is a shining example. Unlike others who took a salaried job after training, Yuvaraj finished his electrical and plumbing training and turned into an entrepreneur. He runs his own business called ‘My Interior works’, which offers A-Z solution for house construction. Today he employs 20 people, a year after his training.
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