The 2017 ASER survey revealed only 60% of youth hoped to study beyond class 12 and 40% have no role model for guidance. A significant portion of youth are unequipped to navigate their social and economic life as adults. Youth in marginalized communities, are unaware about opportunities for future, and the program serves as a opportunity to gain access to the necessary vocational & life skills
Our program functions in Low-tech communities with low internet bandwidth, where we provide tools for contextualized learning.
Our process begins with the mobilization of the Youth and community members within a village. A mentor, who is incharge of a cluster of villages, collaborates with the village leaders, youth, parents and other stakeholders within the community to find solutions for educational, environmental and health related issues creating community-led, technology-driven solutions for the community.
The youth mobilized during this process are encouraged to register on the our platform and are onboarded as members. The youth can then enrol themselves in self-paced Level 1 courses introducing them to Digital Literacy, Career Awareness, etc. They can further enrol in Level 2 courses with specialised remote trainers or graduate to Level 3 in-person training at our vocational centers. The youth members then serve as volunteers within their community through projects.
Youthnet was launched in August 2020, with 100 Mentors in 3000+ villages. Since then, the program has steadily expanded its scope.
As of May '22, the programs consists of close to 3800 mentors, in almost 35000 villages.
155721 youth have been registered with youthnet, out of which 103740 youth have registered in the various courses offered.
Our course list has also steadily expanded, with 22 level 1 courses being offered to the youth.
We have partnered with external stakeholders, such as various NGOs working in the education sector, as well as local & central government bodies. We have train our external partners to use our content & technology and disseminate it further amongst our youth stakeholders.
YouthNet is easily replicable in communities across the world. In order to adopt it to a new location/context, one must work with the community stakeholders to understand the needs of the youth and the areas of development in the communities. Next steps would be to contextualise the content and use simple technology tools for implementation. Contact us at digital@pratham.org and we can help you!
