Halifax, NOVA SCOTIA — Priya Agarwal founded the Antarang Foundation in November 2012 after an initial investment of 5 lakhs. Agarwal realized that students faced difficulties securing employment after completing high school and did not have knowledge of the opportunities available. The Antarang Foundation came about to help bridge the gap between education and employment for adolescents from disadvantaged backgrounds in India. The Antarang Foundation began its work in Mumbai but has expanded its work across Pune and Udaipur.
Following its inception, the foundation began to understand that many students wanted to continue their education to reach their career aspirations. The more education one has, the better the prospects for a good job. This prompted questions that became the catalyst for the deeply impactful work the Antarang Foundation has conducted over the last 10 years to help disadvantaged adolescents find meaningful careers. The main question was, how do students get to the careers they aspire to reach? The Borgen Project spoke with Rita Pani, senior advisor at the Antarang Foundation, to discuss how the Antarang Foundation began operating as a nonprofit organization, the organization’s long-term goals and its positive impact on underprivileged adolescents.
The Foundation’s Work
The Antarang Foundation began a program with students, from slums, who had some formal education between the eighth and 10th standard and others who had reached the age of 18. Pani said, “we started to work with groups of 20 and [in]the first format we ran a three-month core employability skills training program.”
The Antarang Foundation began to help disadvantaged youth find meaningful careers through its core employability skills program, which provided more exposure to various careers and professionals from multiple industries. At the end of the program, these students will have enough exposure to make an informed decision on the career paths they want to follow, which bridges the gap even further. The Antarang Foundation looked to help underprivileged students, particularly dropouts, find a pathway back to education.
Antarang also launched a program called CareerAware, a career awareness program targeting students in standards nine and 10. The demographic that the Antarang Foundation works with needs help to access the resources and networks required, along with role models to help them make informed decisions about their careers.
Antarang staff soon realized that intervening at the age of 18 is too late — critical intervention must occur years earlier in order for the foundation to make a lasting impact on students and help them remain in education and thereafter find meaningful employment. Pani says there are ” two critical breakpoints in the Indian education system” where children are at risk of discontinuing their education — between the 10th and 12th standards.
Rajmohan’s Story
The Antarang foundation’s impact on the work readiness of underprivileged youth has been significant, primarily due to the CareeReady program. One of the foundation’s success stories comes from one of its alumni, Rajmohan. His father worked at the Mumbai docks and his mother was a housewife. In terms of work, he was expected to follow in his father’s footsteps. When Rajmohan joined the CareeReady program, he was still trying to figure out what he wanted to do, with retail and food retail as potential options considering that these are thriving industries.
During his time at the CareeReady program, Pani told The Borgen Project that “Rajmohan, despite not having a phone, would pick up the facilitator’s phone and take pictures.” With the Antarang Foundation being a nonprofit organization, it could not hire a photographer so Rajmohan stepped in to take pictures for the foundation’s newsletters.
Not only was he able to take outstanding photos but he was also able to edit them well. Toward the end of his three-month classroom training program, Rajmohan realized that he had a strong interest in cinematography. Antarang looked within its network for a small cinematography or production company where Rajmohan could intern.
Eight years later, Rajmohan’s name would appear in the credits of Hindi movies and he would approach Antarang to recruit its students for jobs. The foundation’s CareeReady program teaches students what is expected of them in the workplace and helps connect students to job opportunities in their areas of interest within their communities.
Yamini’s Story
Another student who found a meaningful career is an Antarang alumnus Yamini from the Vadala community. She studied until the 10th standard and her mother expected her to begin working once she turned 18. She wanted to become a beautician and underwent some informal training in her community. The Antarang Foundation helped to connect her with a salon to work at. Still, she was required to take two buses to get to the salon, which was not easy as she had not traveled outside her community and her mother was apprehensive about her daughter traveling far.
The Antarang Foundation’s facilitators helped Yamini to make the transition to traveling and working at the salon. Pani told The Borgen Project, “Yamini became [one of]the top [10] nail artists and got her name published in local newspapers in Mumbai.”
These underprivileged students who found meaningful careers had significant support from the Antarang Foundation. Overall, Antarang has helped more than 120,000 students through its CareerAware program, and 94% of students have displayed intentions to continue their education.
Looking Forward
The Antarang Foundation has helped underprivileged students find meaningful careers through its CareerAware and CareeReady intervention programs. The initiatives have ensured that students remain in education after the 10th standard and are able to access resources through the foundation that will help them find careers in their areas of interest while connecting to industry professionals and learning critical skills required for the workforce.
The COVID-19 pandemic had drastic effects on the education system with 1,949 students dropping out of formal education during the first two years of the pandemic in the Mumbai Metropolitan Region. Economic difficulties and migration stood as the primary causes of the dropouts. Among the 1,949 dropouts, girls accounted for 966 students.
The Antarang Foundation, during the pandemic, was still able to reach its students through the extensive adaptability of its programs from a physical to a digital form and its vast network and connections. Thus, the pandemic has allowed the foundation to streamline and diversify its services digitally to prepare for the next 10 years when career readiness will hopefully become a subject taught in schools through computer labs.
– Arijit Joshi
Photo: Flickr