Turn The Tide - UNDP · Turn the Tide – Amplifying Social Entrepreneurship Through Youth Volunteering, on the other hand, looks at developing the skills of youth to create employment

Turn The TideAmplifying sociAl entrepreneurship through youth Volunteering

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turn the tide

Copyrights © 2017by the Ministry of Youth Affairs and Sports, Government of India

All rights reserved. Published in India This publication has been done with the support of United Nations Volunteers (UNV) and United Nations Development Programme (UNDP)

Disclaimer: The views expressed in the publication are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of the Ministry of Youth Affairs and Sports, Government of India/United Nations Volunteers/United Nations Development Programme

To obtain a copy, contact:United Nations Development Programme (UNDP)Post Box #3059, 55 Lodhi EstateNew Delhi - 110003, IndiaTel: +91-11-46532333, Fax: +91-11-24627612Email: [email protected]: www.in.undp.org/unv

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Turn The TideAmplifying sociAl entrepreneurship through youth Volunteering

foreword ........................................................................................................................................................................................................ v

messAges .......................................................................................................................................................................................................... vi

Acknowledgements ............................................................................................................................................................................. ix

Acronyms And ABBreViAtions........................................................................................................................................................ x

executiVe summAry ................................................................................................................................................................................ 1

BAckground .................................................................................................................................................................................................... 3

nyp policy 2014, goVernment schemes And scope for promoting sociAl entrepreneurship .............................................................................................................................................................. 11

youth Volunteerism And sociAl entrepreneurship .......................................................................................... 17 strengthening implementing institutions – nyks And nss ....................................................................... 22

strAtegies And Action plAn ....................................................................................................................................................... 29

Action plAn ................................................................................................................................................................................................ 30

conclusion ................................................................................................................................................................................................. 51

Appendices ................................................................................................................................................................................................... 52

references ..................................................................................................................................................................................................... 60

ConTenTs

Dr. A.K. Dubey, IASSecretary

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Department of Youth AffairsMinistry of Youth Affairs & Sports

Foreword

About 27.5% of the Indian population is in the age groups of 15-29 years. We are emerging slated to be the fourth largest economy by 2025. To make this a reality, this youth population must be empowered and their capabilities honed over the coming years. The National Youth Policy 2014 echoes a similar vision. For India to achieve its rightful place in the league of Nations, empowering the youth of the country to achieve their full potential is the key.

Some of the most pertinent challenges faced by youth in our country today are unemployment, discrimination and social exclusion based on gender identities and other factors, and environmental concerns. The National Youth Policy talks in depth about these challenges and incorporates elements to address them through its strategies. Using the framework of the policy, these four action plans have been developed by our Ministry with support from the United Nations Development Programme and United Nations Volunteers.

Along with national challenges, these plans are also crucial to aligning our work with the international development agenda. In 2015, the Sustainable Development Goals were agreed upon by members of the United Nations including India. These goals will shape the world in which young people will make their contribution and also requires the contribution of young people to become a reality. These plans collectively, and individually, talk about ensuring youth are at the center of the development agenda.

A pioneering approach has been brought in to ensure the achievement of the objectives of the NYP 2014 as well as the Sustainable development goals. Volunteering has been entwined across all four thematic areas as a realistic and achievable strategy to involve young people in development work. With volunteering as an overarching strategy, all the plans bring to light new issues and strategies in the respective themes. For example, the action plan for Social Inclusion – Promoting Social Inclusion of Excluded Youth Groups through Volunteering – talks about the importance of intersectional inclusive practices, while also highlighting the fact that youth themselves are an excluded group in our country. Turn the Tide – Amplifying Social Entrepreneurship Through Youth Volunteering, on the other hand, looks at developing the skills of youth to create employment opportunities for themselves and others while addressing pressing social issues through an entrepreneurial lens.

The relevance of volunteering is particularly highlighted in the action plan on Engaging Youth Volunteers in Disaster Risk Reduction and Environment Management where building a cohort of trained youth volunteers is suggested to tackle unexpected disasters in India. Further, in Engendering the National Youth Policy, a strong focus has been to empower the existing voluntary schemes like gender champions and Anganwadi workers under the Integrated Child Development Services scheme to transform existing social norms and behaviours for gender justice and equality.

I am happy that the Ministry is bringing out these action plans in these important areas of concern. I hope that the suggested strategies assimilated into the various other ministries, government agencies, and civil society organizations. They can play a vital role in creating a world that is more peaceful, equitable, and sustainable one than what we have today.

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United Nations Development Programme

mr. yuri Afanasiev,un resident coordinator

undp resident representative, india

UNDP in India • 55, Lodi Estate, Post Box No. 3059, New Delhi 110 003, IndiaTel: 91-11-2462 8877 • Fax : 91-11-2462 7612 • Email: [email protected] • www.in.undp.org

Message

When the world’s governments adopted the ambitious Agenda 2030 in 2015, it was with the recognition that achieving the 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) will require the participation of all institutions and individuals. The young, especially, are central to this effort. They have the potential to be a positive force for transformational change. India’s 330-million-plus young men and women will be instrumental in helping realize the SDGs.

The UNDP Youth Strategy 2014-17 identifies support to national youth policy development and implementation as a key area of intervention. In India, the project, ‘Strengthening Nehru Yuva Kendra Sangathan and National Service Scheme’, was conceived with the aim of strengthening youth volunteering infrastructure and supporting the implementation of the Government of India’s National Youth Policy 2014.

Under the National Youth Policy 2014, four key areas of intervention have been identified, with many areas of overlap with the SDGs. Action Plans were developed to achieve the objectives of the National Youth Policy 2014 under four key areas: Social Entrepreneurship; Gender Justice and Equality; Environment and Disaster Risk Reduction; and Social Inclusion. While all four Action Plans work towards Goal 1 (No Poverty), the plans also bring focus to other SDGs.

The Action Plan on Social Entrepreneurship looks at the targets of Goal 8 (Decent Work and Economic Growth). Strategies detailed in the plan suggest facilitating entrepreneurship opportunities for youth in order to build creative, innovative solutions to the most pressing development challenges in India through education and volunteering.

The Action Plan on Gender Justice and Equality provides clear strategies to work towards Goal 5 (Gender Equality) in India. For example, one of the key strategies outlined is to encourage young women to volunteer in their communities, which could help them build skills while also challenging gender inequalities.

Along with an overarching focus on Goal 6 (Clean Water and Sanitation), Goal 14 (Life under Water), and Goal 15 (Life on Land), the Action Plan on Environment and Disaster Risk Reduction also addresses some of the targets of Goal 13 (Climate Action), by strategizing prevention and mitigation of natural disasters, involving youth volunteers in climate-change related planning, and improving education and awareness about climate change and environmental challenges.

Goal 10 calls for reducing inequalities based on age, sex, disability, race, ethnicity, origin, religion, or economic or other status within a country. The Action Plan on Social Inclusion recognized young people as a marginalized group, laying out a blueprint to effectively approach intersectional marginality due to other factors like sex, disability, caste, ethnicity, religion and others by creating safe spaces for youth and promoting a rights-based approach to youth development.

These four Action Plans together create a strong framework for India to bring together youth volunteers and channel their dynamism and energy towards tackling some of the most pressing national and global development challenges. The Government of India and other stakeholders are already concentrating its efforts to carrying young people along as it seeks to meet these targets. We offer our full support as these Action Plans are implemented.

Message

Around the world, more than one billion people, including many youth, volunteer within and outside their communities. Young people are increasingly acting as agents of change in their communities. Moving from being the beneficiaries of development work, they are leading impactful sustainable development initiatives. Youth are becoming a transformative force for social change and progress in India and around the world.

Volunteerism allows young people a chance to take part in community and national development activities. It gives them a sense of ownership, a chance to understand these issues and their rights, to build character and develop personally. Volunteerism also provides opportunities for youth to interact with other young people, build soft job skills and get a better understanding of employment opportunities they would like to pursue.

While volunteering for development, young people also develop their own skills and talents, and further feed into a pool of skilled professionals creating better opportunities for addressing development goals. This cycle creates a cohort of young people with the potential to change their world and meet development issues head on.

Volunteering has formed part of Indian culture since the very beginning. Society above self has been a mantra for the nation, which has helped create some of the largest youth volunteering schemes in the world. Schemes like Nehru Yuva Kendra Sangathan and the National Service Scheme reach out to over 11 million young people in the country and promote volunteerism as a tool for sustainable social change. Along with understanding the potential impact of volunteering, there lies an unprecedented opportunity with over 60 percent of the population, who are under the age of 35.

Volunteering can play an important role in achieving the goals of the National Youth Policy 2014, but also the Sustainable Development Goals. The four Action Plans developed by the Ministry of Youth Affairs and Sports, UNDP India, and UNV India provide concrete and effective strategies to use volunteering for social inclusion, gender justice and equality, social entrepreneurship, and environment and disaster risk reduction.

To tackle these and other development issues, we must focus on volunteering to leave no one behind, including young people. With young volunteers at the center of development plans, India has the opportunity to pave the way in pioneering youth volunteering models which can be replicated across the world.

Olivier Adam Executive Coordinator

T. +49 (0) 228-815 2000

F. +49 (0) 228-815 2001

The United Nations Volunteers (UNV) programme is administered by the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP).

A. Platz der Vereinten Nationen 1, 53113 Bonn, Germany

W. www.unv.org

Message

The National Youth Policy 2014 envisages an empowering scaffolding for youth in India to ensure their personal development as well as development of our country. While considering translating this policy into action, the idea of action plans in four selected focus areas of the NYP 2014 was shaped. While the four thematic areas reflected the objectives of the policy, volunteering emerged as an interweaving thread to ensure practical implementation of the strategies under these plans.

These action plans have been developed by experts in their fields after multiple consultations with the ministry, government agencies, civil society organizations, and of course, youth themselves. Starting with a consultation on International Volunteer Day (December 5, 2015), an expert group on youth development was identified with members from various government departments like NITI Aayog, Ministry of Women and Child Development, Ministry of Skill Development and Entrepreneurship, Ministry of Social Justice and Empowerment, Ministry of Environment, Forests and Climate Change, and many others. The committee also consisted of youth leaders, representatives of youth agencies and organizations, representatives from international organizations like UNDP and UNICEF, and others.

Meanwhile, the individual consultants that were engaged were chosen after careful consideration of their experience and are leaders and experts in their respective fields. Pravah – a leading youth development organization with more than 20 years of experience – has developed Turn the Tide – Amplifying Social Entrepreneurship through Youth Volunteering. Centre for Social Equity and Inclusion, an organization working to promote social inclusion for almost three decades, led Promoting Social Inclusion of Excluded Youth Groups Through Volunteering. Engaging Youth Volunteers in Disaster Risk Reduction and Environment Management and Engendering the National Youth Policy have been created by Ms. Ranjini Mukherjee and Ms. Leena Patel respectively, both front runners in their fields as well.

Immense effort has been put into the creation of meaningful yet feasible strategies to make the NYP 2014 into a reality. While over-arching strategies are shared across all four documents, specific strategies keeping in mind relevant ministries, agencies like Nehru Yuva Kendra Sangathan and National Service Scheme, etc. are also in place. I hope that these action plans can be incorporated into the long-term strategies of all concerned stakeholders to ensure that young volunteers are at the forefront of development in India.

(Lalit Kumar Gupta)

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Government of IndiaMinistry of Youth Affairs & Sports

Department of Youth AffairsShastri Bhawan, New Delhi-110001Telefax: 011-23384441, 23381002

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L. K. GuptaJoint Secretary

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ACknowledgemenTs

Turn the Tide – Amplifying Social Entrepreneurship through Youth Volunteering has been developed as an Action Plan for the implementation of the National Youth Policy (2014) under ‘Strengthening Nehru Yuva Kendra Sangathan and National Service Scheme’, a joint project between the Ministry of Youth Affairs and Sports, Government of India, United Nations Development Programme, and United Nations Volunteers.

We thank Ms Ishani Sen, the lead consultant for this Action Plan, for her expertise and inputs in the creation of this plan. Special thanks to the resource organisations, Pravah and Commutiny – The Youth Collective, including Ms Sonal Chaturvedi, Mr Rajesh Nandan Singh Meher, Mr Arjun Shekhar, Ms Meenu Venkateswaran, Ms Arunima Singh and Ms Prathibha Pathak. We also extend our thanks to social entrepreneurs including Ms Ashraf Patel, Mr Ajay Pandit, Mr Bappaditya Mukherjee, Ms Deepjyoti Sonu Bramha, Mr Indrajit Sinha, Mr Navendu Mishra, Ms Neha Buch, Mr Sangeep mehto, mr souvik saha and mr Anirban sen gupta who have contributed towards the development of this Action Plan. We also recognise the efforts of many social entrepreneurship incubating programmes/organisations, including Ashoka: Innovators for the Public, Dhriti, Changelooms, Farm to Food, Going to School, UnLtd India and Villgro Innovations Foundation, for inputs to this Action Plan. Discussions with experts in many disciplines have been valuable in the development of this plan, including Ms Annie Namala, Ms Leena Patel and Ms Ranjini Mukherjee. We thank all members of the Expert Group Committee for Youth Development in 2016 for their valuable insights for this plan.

This document would not have been possible without the support of Dr A.K Dubey, Secretary (Youth Affairs), Ministry of Youth Affairs and Sports, and Mr Rajeev Gupta, former Secretary

(Youth Affairs), Ministry of Youth Affairs and Sports, Government of India. We are also grateful to Mr Lalit Kumar Gupta, Joint Secretary (Youth Affairs), Ministry of Youth Affairs and Sports, Government of India, and National Project Director, ‘Strengthening Nehru Yuva Kendra Sangathan and National Service Scheme’.

We would like to thank Major General (retd) Dilawar Singh, Director General, Nehru Yuva Kendra Sangathan (NYKS), along with other senior staff members of the NYKS including Mr Sunil Malik, Mr M.P. Gupta, Mr Atif Chaudhary and Mr S K Thakur. We also thank Dr Girish Tuteja, former Director, National Service Scheme (NSS), and officials of the Rajiv Gandhi National Institute of Youth Development (RGNIYD) for their valuable inputs.

We are also grateful to Mr Yuri Afanasiev, United nations resident coordinator and undp resident Representative in India, and Mr. Jaco Cilliers, Country Director, United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), India. We are appreciative of the constant support offered by Ms Marina Walter, Deputy Country Director, UNDP India, throughout the development of the Action Plan.

We acknowledge the continuous follow-up, feedback and support of Ms Bhavya Goswami, Ms Rubina Singh and Ms Vriti Vasudevan under ‘Strengthening Nehru Yuva Kendra Sangathan and National Service Scheme’ for developing these Action Plans. We acknowledge the support of Mr Narendra Mishra, Mr Krishna Raj and Ms Gul Berry at United Nations Volunteers India, and Mr Utkarsh Pandey, National UNV, for their guidance and support in the finalisation of the Action Plans. Special thanks to online volunteer Ms Rebecca Ro, from Onlinevolunteering.com, for facilitating in the process of editing and proofreading of this document.

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Turn the Tide: Amplifying Social Entrepreneurship through Youth Volunteering

CSO Civil Society Organisation

DDU-GKY Deen Dayal Upadhyaya Grameen Kaushalya Yojana

dyc district youth coordinator

GDP Gross Domestic Product

GoI Government of India

MoF Ministry of Finance

MoHRD Ministry of Human Resource Development

MoRD Ministry of Rural Development

MoSDE Ministry of Skill Development and Entrepreneurship

MoSME Ministry of Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises

MoYAS Ministry of Youth Affairs and Sports

NGO Non-governmental Organisation

NSS National Service Scheme

NYC National Youth Coordinator

NYKS Nehru Yuva Kendra Sangathan

NYP National Youth Policy

PMEGP Prime Minister’s Employment Generation Programme

RGNIYD Rajiv Gandhi National Institute of Youth Development

SC Schedule Caste

SE Social Entrepreneurship

SETU Self-Employment and Talent Utilisation

SFURTI Scheme of Fund for Regeneration of Traditional Industries

SGSY Swarnjayanti Gram Swarozgar Yojana

ST Schedule Tribe

TREAD Trade Related Entrepreneurship Assistance and Development

UNDP United Nations Development Programme

UNICEF United Nations Children’s Fund

UNV United Nations Volunteer

YDI Youth Development Index

ACronYms And ABBreViATions

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exeCuTiVe summArY

The Ministry of Youth Affairs and Sports (MoYAS), Government of India, developed the National Youth Policy (NYP) in 2014 to provide a holistic vision for youth in India. The vision is “to empower the youth of the country to achieve their full potential, and through them, enable India to find its rightful place in the community of nations.” 1 to provide support to the Ministry in implementing the youth policy and strengthening its volunteering schemes (NSS: National Service Scheme; NYKS: Nehru Yuva Kendra Sangathan), United Nations Volunteers (UNV), the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) and MoYAS partnered on a project titled ‘Strengthening NYKS and NSS’ in 2015. The project seeks to develop Action Plans for the roll-out of the NYP 2014 on four selected themes to foster increased recognition of the contribution of youth volunteering. This document outlines the Action Plan for one of the four selected themes, that of the promotion of social entrepreneurship (SE) through youth volunteering.

India is witnessing a demographic transition. Currently youth (ages 15–29) constitute 27.5 per cent of the population and contribute to 37 per cent of the country’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP).2 While this demographic shift creates potential for a demographic dividend in India, which is defined as economic growth that can occur when the share of the working-age population is larger than the non-working-age

share of the population, this economic potential can only be reached if proper access to social services are in place.3 It is important to develop a range of options to address challenges associated with this shift including unemployment, lack of quality education, social exclusion and lack of leadership opportunities, which has resulted in the social and financial exclusion of Indian youth.

Youth social entrepreneurship can be seen as “an initiative by youth that can create social value and economic sustainability using social innovation as a means”. From a financial perspective, social entrepreneurship has the potential to gain financial sustainability by serving the underserved market through innovative business models. Since social entrepreneurs mostly work with and for their communities, they are able to foster a system of mutual support and gain respect from community members which contributes to their overall success. From a social perspective, this also enables young people to enhance their self-esteem and contribute to community development by providing innovative solutions to familiar existing social challenges. From a psychological perspective, entrepreneurship opportunities allow young people to lead experiments and innovations, make their own decisions, enhance their ability to work with diverse people and thus build their confidence in their leadership abilities.

1 Ministry of State for Youth Affairs and Sport. 2014. National Youth Policy. Retrieved from http://www.rgniyd.gov.in/sites/default/files/pdfs/scheme/nyp_2014.pdf. 2 National Youth Policy. 2014.3 United National Children’s Fund. 2011. The Situation of Children in India: A Profile. Retrieved from https://www.unicef.org/sitan/files/SitAn_India_May_2011.pdf.

Executive Summary

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Although social entrepreneurship has existed in India for a while, it has only recently gained recognition. Currently, there are limited opportunities for young people in India to develop their social entrepreneurial abilities. Giving access to social entrepreneurship volunteer opportunities can expose young people to various issues and encourage them to design and implement possible solutions.

The NSS and NYKS, the two largest youth volunteering schemes in India administered by the MoYAS, offer great possibilities for such learning. However, current programmes offered by these two agencies are largely designed from a ‘youth for development’ lens and their potential to address the social and financial needs of young people is not fully explored. There is a need to align the objectives and programmes of these two institutions to better promote the social and financial inclusion of youth. Both these spaces have the potential to be a hub for developing entrepreneurial abilities among youth through prioritising experiential learning through action and reflection and learning for self- transformation, while also continuing to contribute to Indian communities. This can be achieved by creating youth-led safe spaces, as well as by providing mentoring support for young people.

The proposed Action Plan was developed to recommend a possible roadmap for enhancing NYKS and NSS spaces as nurturing schemes for social entrepreneurship. It was developed through an inclusive consultation process with youth in India, budding and experienced social entrepreneurs, incubating agencies and NYKS and NSS officials. The Action Plan has two parts: Part A focusses on prioritising youth development as a key strategy for the implementation of the 2014

NYP; Part B outlines strategies to strengthen NYKS and NSS programmes as nurturing spaces for social entrepreneurship. The four key strategies for developing social entrepreneurship are:

• Reshaping volunteerism to make it more aspirational for young people: this restructuring will include the demonstration of long-term benefits of volunteerism for social entrepreneurship. The actions under this strategy will help create buy-in among youth and the NSS and NYKS functionaries for the amended programmes to include an SE component.

• Recasting the volunteering programmes an individual capacity building vehicles: Under this strategy, actions will ensure that the NSS and NYKS volunteering experience include processes of reflection and action activities, which increase capacity building for the volunteer.

• Building an ecosystem for the reimagined volunteering journey: This strategy will work towards energising diverse stakeholders including government, corporations, civil society, educational institutions and networks of entrepreneurs to promote, support and nurture social entrepreneurship for youth.

• Aligning and enabling internal organisational elements to support the reimagined programmes: This strategy will focus on strengthening and streamlining processes and systems such as governance and review within the MoYAS, NSS and NYKS.

As India’s demographics continues to shift, it is important to build strategies which focus on youth empowerment and address the social, psychological and financial needs of young people.

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1.1 Introduction

The Ministry of Youth Affairs and Sports (MoYAS) of the Government of India (GoI) formulated the National Youth Policy (NYP) 2014 to provide a holistic vision for youth in India. The mandate is “to empower the youth of the country to achieve their full potential, and through them enable India to find its rightful place in the community of nations.”4 The Ministry has identified 11 priority areas which cater to the needs of youth by equipping skills, knowledge and capacities to take on the current and future challenges of an increasingly complex global community (see Appendix I for priority areas). To provide support to the MoYAS in implementing the youth policy and strengthening its volunteering schemes, United Nations Volunteers (UNV), United Nations Development Programmes (UNDP) and MoYAS have signed a project titled ‘Strengthening NYKS and NSS’ in 2015. The overall aim of the project is to provide direction to the youth volunteer schemes of the MoYAS and to prepare concrete Action Plans for the successful implementation of various objectives defined under the NYP 2014.5 To foster increased recognition of the contribution of youth volunteering, the project will develop Action Plans for the roll-out of NYP 2014 on four selected themes, including promotion of social entrepreneurship through youth volunteering. This document will address the promotion of social entrepreneurship through youth volunteerism by outlining an Action Plan to strengthen NYKS and NSS programmes as nurturing spaces for social entrepreneurship.

BACkground

1.2 Youth Landscape in India

India is currently witnessing a demographic transition. in the south Asian area, one in three people are youth. According to United Nations Population Fund State of the World’s Population report, India has the largest youth population in the world with 356 million 10-24 year old.6

The National Youth Policy defines youth as a person between ages 15 and 29 years old. Currently youth constitute 27.5 per cent of the population contributing 34 per cent to the Gross National Income (NYP 2014) In addition, the working population of India is expected to increase to 592 million by 2020 (NYP 2014). This, coupled with the increasing economic growth of India to be the fourth largest economy in the world by 2025, raises the potential for a demographic dividend in the country.7

This increase in India`s youth population presents the country with an unprecedented opportunity to accelerate growth. However, it is essential that growth be paired with investment in human capital, related infrastructure and capacity building in development initiatives to provide the support necessary to ensure a productive and educated demographic.

1.2.1 Global Youth Development Index

The Youth Development Index (YDI) is a composite index of 18 indicators that collectively measure

4 National Youth Policy 2014.5 UNDP. 2014. Strengthening NYKS and NSS. Retrieved from http://www.in.undp.org/content/india/en/home/operations/projects/poverty_reduction/strengthening-nyks-and-nss.html.6 United Nations Population Fund. 2016. State of the World’s Population Report. Retrieved from http://www.unfpa.org/swop. 7 United Nations Population Fund. 2016.

Background

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progress in youth development in 183 countries. The YDI is based on the definition of youth as individuals between the ages 15 and 29. The five domains of youth development that it measures are education, health and well-being, employment and opportunity, political participation and civic participation (See Appendix 2 for the YDI indicators by domain).8

The overall YDI score for the South Asia region was 0.581, ranking it eighth of the nine regions (YDI 2016). The South Asian region consists of eight countries: Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Bhutan, Maldives, Nepal, India, Pakistan and Sri Lanka. In the region, civic participation and employment and opportunity had low YDI scores, education has a medium YDI score, political participation had high and health and well-being had a very high score. India’s 345 million youth account for nearly three-fourths of the South Asian region’s youth. Between 2010 and 2015, India and Sri Lanka’s YDI score improved by more than 10 per cent. India’s score’s improvement can be attributed to an increase in the number of youth with an account at a financial institution and reduction in the adolescent fertility rate as well as a drop in youth mortality. India ranks 133 of 183 on the 2016 YDI index (YDI 2016).

A comparative analysis of the YDI across South Asian countries demonstrates that India has

relatively low civil participation and relatively high political participation compared to its neighbours. However, when compared to its counterparts, India – which ranks seventh in the world based on Gross Domestic Product (GDP) – has a substantially lower YDI then the top 10 countries by GDP.

When examining the YDI scores around the world, it can be concluded that having a higher youth population is in no way correlated to a higher YDI score.9 For example, the African region has a high number of individuals under 20 years of age but ranks relatively low on the YDI scale; Japan, which has the world’s largest oldest population with only 7.12 per cent of its citizens considered youth (ages 15 to 29) in 2016 ranks high (10th) on the YDI score and has the third largest economy, according to International Monetary Fund estimates.10

1.2.2 Challenges of Indian youth

Social, Cultural and Political ChallengesDespite the fact that Indian youth (15 to 29 years old) comprise 27.5 per cent of the population, there are still a number of social, cultural, economic and political challenges youth face today.

Although Article 15 of the Constitution of India prohibits discrimination based on caste, Indian society remains deeply stratified. Many young

8 The Commonwealth. 2016. Youth Development Index 2016. Retrieved from http://youthdevelopmentindex.org/.9 http://youthdevelopmentindex.org/;http://blog.euromonitor.com/2012/02/special-report-the-worlds-youngest-populations-.html;http://unesdoc.unesco.org/images/0022/002214/221487e.pdf. 10 International Monetary Fund. 2016. World Economic Outlook 2016. Retrieved from https://www.imf.org/external/pubs/ft/weo/2016/01/weodata/index.aspx.

Overall rank Country YDI YD level Education Health and well-being

Employment and

opportunity

Political participation

Civil participation

31 sri lanka 0.731 Very high 0.721 0.700 0.751 0.412 0.238

62 Maldives 0.665 High 0.714 0.834 0.527 0.648 0.487

69 Bhutan 0.657 High 0.647 0.701 0.475 0.825 0.779

77 Nepal 0.647 High 0.570 0.720 0.624 0.859 0.392

133 india 0.548 Medium 0.592 0.616 0.439 0.703 0.310

147 Bangladesh 0.492 Low 0.520 0.690 0.321 0.412 0.476

154 pakistan 0.470 Low 0.474 0.730 0.429 0.246 0.250

167 Afghanistan 0.440 Low 0.413 0.507 0.314 0.624 0.380

Table 1: Youth Development Index in South Asia (2016)

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11 Cabinet Secretariat Government of India. 2006. Social, Economic and Educational Status of the Muslim Community of India. Retrieved from http://mhrd.gov.in/sites/upload_files/mhrd/files/sachar_comm.pdf; Bhasin, Agrima et al. 2014. India Exclusion Report. Retrieved from http://www.indianet.nl/pdf/IndiaExclusionReport2013-2014.pdf 12 World Economic Forum. (2016). The Global Gender Gap Index. Retrieved from https://reports.weforum.org/global-gender-gap-report-2016/rankings/.13 World Economic Forum. 2016.14 DeSouza, Peter, Sanjay Kumar, and Sandeep Shastri. 2008. Indian Youth in a Transforming World. Retrieved from https://us.sagepub.com/en-us/nam/indian-youth-in-a-transforming-world/book234348.15 http://www.ey.com/Publication/vwLUAssets/EY-Government-and-Public-Sector-Reaping-Indias-demographic-dividend/$FILE/EY-Reaping-Indias-promised-demographic-dividend-industry-in-driving-seat.pdf16 USF. Unknown. Realizing India’s demographic dividend. Retrieved from http://usf.vc/entrepreneur-info/realizing-indias-demographic-dividend-gainfully-employing-a-billion-person-workforce.17 Government of India. 2008. Economic Survey. Retrieved from http://indiabudget.nic.in/es2007-08/esmain.htm.

people are marginalised because of their identity based on caste, social class, religion and gender. This impacts their access to education, healthcare, livelihood options and opportunity to participate in governance.11

With respect to gender discrimination in India, according to the 2016 Global Gender Gap Index produced by the World Economic Forum, India ranks 87th of 144 countries, with a score of 0.684, indicating it has closed the gender gap by 68 per cent.12 However, the country has an increased gender gap in the economic participation and opportunity and political empowerment spheres. Politically, decision making authorities mostly rest with elders, leading to limited opportunities for youth participation.13

Economic Challenges A 2008 study titled ‘Indian Youth in a Transforming World’, by the Centre for Society for Development Studies, states that youth identified unemployment and poverty are the two major challenges that young people faced.14 Based on these findings, they believed that the youth generation and the guarantee of employment for this demographic should be the nation’s priority.

According to the National Sample Survey Office 2011–12, (NSS Report No. 554(68/10/1), the unemployment rate among youth (age 15– 29 years) is much higher as compared to the overall population (Ministry of Statistics and Programme Implementation, 2012). Unemployment rates among youth in usual status (which measures unemployment based on 365 days) were about 5 per cent for rural males, 5 per cent for rural females,

8 per cent for urban males and 13 per cent for urban females (Ministry of Statistics and Programme Implementation, 2012). The International Labour Organization report (2013), ‘Youth employment and unemployment: An Indian perspective,’ outlines statistics on labour force participation in India. Of youth ages 15 to 29, males have a 68 per cent labour force participation rate and females have a 30.2 per cent in rural areas. In urban areas, males have a 61 per cent and females a 16.8 per cent labour force participation rate.

The lack of access to quality education and skill training impacts youth employability. Only 5 per cent of youth have access to formal skills training. Almost 95 per cent of the youth population enters the market without adequate skillsets. In addition, India’s economy is creating an additional 5.5 million15 number of sector jobs a year,16 as opposed to India’s 13 million annual new entrants into the job market. According to the Ministry of Human Resource Development (MoHRD), 38 per cent of India’s workforce is illiterate and 25 per cent is literate only up to the primary level. Due to this disparity in education and marketable skills, 93 per cent of the workforce is employed in the unorganised or informal sector, characterised by low productivity and low-paying jobs.17 this further exacerbates social and financial exclusion of young people and limits their opportunities and choices, as well as their ability to contribute to the societies in which they live.

Other challenges relating to social inclusion and justice, environmental threats and psychological isolation grouped with social, cultural, political and economic challenges for youth remains a growing

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problem as the youth demographic in India continues to increase. Therefore, it is important to build strategies that focus on youth empowerment addressing the social, psychological and financial needs of young people.

1.3 Lenses of Working with Youth

The nature of youth empowerment in our country is significantly influenced by the way young people are viewed. In India, the primary lens used to look at youth is economic and there is huge focus on providing them with the necessary skills to become an economically productive workforce to reap the demographic dividend.18 Another key approach is to look at youth as clients for development interventions and focus on targeting programmes towards problems that affect them, including unemployment, illiteracy, substance abuse, etc. the third approach is the youth for development approach that views young people as volunteers, community workers and peer educators – who can contribute their time, energy and skills to the achievement of global development goals. The fourth lens, youth development, focusses on investing in youth to empower them with knowledge, values, attitude and skills to lead life meaningfully. It also focusses on youth leadership building by recognising personal transformation as the key to socio-economic transformation (Patel et al., 2013). While all these lenses require youth empowerment, the

youth development lens addresses the diverse needs of youth more holistically. The vision of the NYP 2014 calls for realising the full potential of youth. In this context, it is imperative that the youth development lens is the prioritised lens, underlying youth programming to enable young people to build their leadership capacities in order to take on the challenge of leading India’s development. Therefore, this lens will provide the foundation for this Action Plan and help to shape programmes and initiatives for youth social entrepreneurship.

1.4 Social Entrepreneurship as an Imperative for Social and Financial Inclusion of Young People

The NYP 2014 discusses social entrepreneurship as a critical future imperative that can contribute in achieving the economic and social empowerment of young people. For the purpose of this Action Plan, social entrepreneurship is referred to those initiatives that can create social value and economic sustainability using innovation as a means.19 According to the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF), youth social entrepreneurship provides an opportunity for young people to develop traits which provide them with valuable life skills that will facilitate their transition into adulthood and benefit them throughout their adult lives.20 Some common characteristics of social entrepreneurship identified by UNICEF can be seen in Table 2.

18 Patel et al. 2013. The Ocean in a Drop. New Delhi: Sage Publications India.19 National Youth Strategy 2014.20 UNICEF. 2007. Adolescents and Civil Engagement: Social Entrepreneurship and Young People. Retrieved from https://www.unicef.org/Learning_Series_3_Social_Entrepreneurship_24dec2007.pdf.

Characteristic Description

Visionary Vision for change, inspires others, mobilises young people, forms alliances

innovative Ability to be creative, identifies and exploits new opportunities for creating lasting social change

leadership and dedication Committed in leading the creation of superior social values as well as persistence in overcom-ing setbacks

Willingness to self-correct Highly self-correcting since they are attached more to a goal rather than an approach or plan

Ethical fibre Fosters the development of good organisa-tional values, vision and ethics for all to follow as well as the ability to build trust

Table 2: Common Characteristics of Social Entrepreneurship

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The social entrepreneurship model for youth engagement, very often viewed through an economistic lens, has been promoted by many countries as a strategy to combat unemployment. However, the social entrepreneurship approach inherently lends itself to youth development beyond just economic benefits. It enables young people to find their passion, build entrepreneurial leadership abilities like working with others, build empathy, identify opportunities and take risk to innovate a solution for social problems.

Over the last decade, social entrepreneurship in India has seen exponential growth. An increasing number of passionate young men and women have started social enterprises, providing out-of-the-box ways of improving the lives of the country’s 400 million poor through innovative ventures in areas such as healthcare, education, livelihood, retail and environment. These young social entrepreneurs with their creative ideas have set up enterprises which not only address development problems but have also resulted in the creation of social capital, wealth and jobs for millions of young people, contributing towards the sustainable development agenda. Box 1 provides two examples of social entrepreneurship initiatives in india.

Youth social entrepreneurship has many advantages. Financially, entrepreneurship has the potential to enhance incomes for the entrepreneurs and their co-workers and partners

from an emotional perspective; entrepreneurship allows youth to have a strong social support system. It also gives them the opportunity to earn respect and recognition from the community in which they operate. Additionally, entrepreneurship opportunities give youth autonomy through leading experiments and innovations and enhancing leadership skills. From a development perspective, entrepreneurship has the potential to contribute significantly towards local community development through wealth creation, employment generation and poverty alleviation.

Although there are many benefits of social entrepreneurship, there are also some challenges related to participation in it for youth. This is due to the lack of learning opportunities in this area to develop an entrepreneurial mindset and necessary skills in educational institutions, inadequate funding opportunities, societal attitude towards entrepreneurship and lack of safety net and supportive environment.

A prerequisite to overcome such challenges would be to:

1) Build young people’s leadership capacities for self-learning, self-expression, reflections and decision-making, which will enable them to take ownership of their life through critical analysis of the issues affecting them; it will also allow them to build psychological, social

Box 1: Examples of Social Entrepreneurship Initiatives in India

Miracle Couriers: Dhruva Lark, the founder of Miracle Couriers, came up with the idea for the organisation when he signed a courier package at home and realised that no verbal communication was needed. With support from Thermax and various awards funds, he launched Miracle Couriers, an organisation which hires deaf individuals for courier delivery and processing. He now hopes to hire blind people as well.

BPO Desi Crew: Saloni Malhotra’s experience of working in a Leo Club (youth organisation of Lions Clubs International) inspired her to found rural business process outsourcing (BPO) Desi Crew, a non-profit organisation which provides competitive outsourcing solution to clients and meaningful employment opportunities. The rural BPO has opened new opportunities for rural youth, especially girls. Now large Indian IT firms are also adopting rural BPO strategies. (See Appendix 3 for list of IT firms).

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and financial competencies to take initiative and increase their confidence in their ability to withstand risks.

2) Create an enabling environment through policy formulations and adequate budget allocation, not only for setting up enterprises but also for entrepreneurship education and leadership building and set up experiments which may have risk of failure. This Action Plan provides a way to implement some of these solutions to create a more conducive atmosphere for youth social entrepreneurship in India.

1.5 Action Plan Methodology

1.5.1. Framework

The framework for developing the Action Plan is based on three critical premises: (a) the needs of young people; (b) passion/and skills of young people; and (c) passion and skills of the institutions working with youth.

Based on the problem analysis and youth landscape in India, social and financial inclusion along with opportunities for participation in decision making have emerged as the critical needs for young

people. The Action Plan proposes to address the gaps at three levels. One is at the level of the young people – which includes building abilities, skillsets and the attitudes required by the young person to address the challenges of financial and social exclusion. The second is at the level of the organisation – which includes youth programming and the skills needed by the institutions working with youth to address the problem of financial and social exclusion. The third is at the level of the larger ecosystem.

1.5.2 Goal and Objectives

The overall goal of the Action Plan is to create a roadmap for implementing the NYP objectives by energising the existing schemes within the MOYAS, National Service Scheme (NSS) and Nehru Yuva Kendra Sangathan (NYKS) for enhancing social entrepreneurship through volunteering.

1.5.2 Intended Outcomes

• Increase in the number of active volunteers in all blocks by at least 25 per cent (including women, and youth from Dalit, marginalised and differently abled communities).

NEED Of yOUth• Safe, empowering

spaces• Social inclusion• Economic inclusion• Psychological inclusion

ACtiON PLANTo build aspiring youth

leaders throughpsycho-social, financial interventions to ensure

economic and social inclusion

SkiLLS AND PASSiON Of yOUNg PEOPLE

• Ability to identify and challenge/change social exclusion and discriminatory practices

• Increase in support of developing social entrepreneurial competencies and setting up of enterprises

• Greater access to finance and market for enterprise

SkiLLS AND PASSiON Of thE iNStitUtiONS

wORkiNg with yOUth• preventive• Architects of empowering

spaces• Psycho-social• Self to society• Mindset change

Figure 1: Conceptual Framework for Developing Action Plan

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• Increase in participation in volunteering opportunities amongst youth in the 100 districts with low Human Development Indexes (See Appendix 4 for 100 districts).

• Increase in the number of youth clubs/NSS units which promote entrepreneurial activities.

• At least one youth club in each block to be developed as a social entrepreneurial hub.

• Increase in the number of young people who are aware of, or have access to or have available, social entrepreneurial scheme benefits.

• Greater number of young people who have identified an opportunity to build their social entrepreneurship ideas including greater access to finance and markets for social enterprises.

• Trained elected representatives/grassroots functionaries as Community Champions to mobilise communities to improve volunteering and promote social entrepreneurship.

• Increase in number of youth social enterprises set up in india.

• Improved income levels amongst youth.

This chapter is focussed on Indian youth landscape, within which the action plan is to be developed. It emphasizes the need of approaching youth empowerment through youth development lens to realize the potential of the youth cohort. The chapter further examines the scope of action plan in promoting social entrepreneurship as a strategy for social and financial inclusion of youth population.

1.5.3 Methodology

For the development of the Action Plan, the following methodology was adopted:

1) Desk-based research: Review of the literature: NYP 2014, UNV Youth Volunteering Strategy 2014–17, UNDP Youth Strategy 2014–17 and State of World Volunteering Report 2011, were studied to examine the scope of youth social entrepreneurship in the current context. The literature review also included articles and publications which build knowledge and capture good practices on the focus area. The narratives of five social

entrepreneurs from across the world were studied to identify the enabling factors for building a social entrepreneurial mindset. Case studies by UNICEF on developing entrepreneurial ability among young adolescents were examined to identify the processes involved.

Key identified policy documents related to youth schemes and entrepreneurship were studied to identify the range of support that is available for young people to pursue their interest towards becoming social entrepreneurs.

2) Meeting with NykS and NSS officials: The NYKS and NSS are the two pioneering government agencies which reach out to the maximum number of young people in the country. As these Action Plans are primarily going to be implemented through these two agencies, a thorough understanding of the system, along with its strengths and areas of opportunity, is required. Two or three critical people from the central system were interviewed. In addition, six officials from five districts were also interviewed to understand their perspective on the scope of nurturing social entrepreneurial ability through the NSS and nyks.

3) interviewing young social entrepreneurs: Eight social entrepreneurs/young social entrepreneurs were interviewed to trace their journey from volunteering to setting up their own social initiatives. Case studies of two initiatives, which have nurtured young social entrepreneurs, were studied in detail to draw out their learnings. Interviews were also conducted with personnel from three incubating agencies to understand the challenges and possibilities of supporting entrepreneurial abilities among young people.

4) Crowd sourcing of ideas of promoting youth volunteering with a focus on social entrepreneurship through social media: An online crowd sourcing initiative was

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conducted to understand young people’s interest in volunteering and their perception of how volunteering can help them to build entrepreneurial mindsets. This survey was open to young people in the age group of 20 to 30.

5) field Visits:a. Field visits: Five initiatives, which focus on

building social entrepreneurial mindsets among young people and have used volunteering as a strategy to induct these young people to explore social entrepreneurship as a viable career option, were visited.

b. Four youth-led organisations/initiatives/entrepreneurs, who have been able to build a cadre of youth volunteer through their initiative in their area of operation, were also visited.

6) Consultation: Once the first draft Action Plan was ready, consultations with youth groups and some key social entrepreneurs were organised across four states: Tamil Nadu, Uttar Pradesh, Delhi and Rajasthan. NYKS and NSS volunteers along with young people from other youth organisations/institutions were part of the consultation.

The formulation of four hypotheses were utilised to gather content for the Action Plan:

• Promotion of youth volunteerism through the lens of social entrepreneurship can offer creative solutions to economic, social and psychological needs of youth while they contribute to the needs of nation building.

• Strengthening of youth volunteerism via the creation of relevant empowering spaces which build young people’s agency to develop entrepreneurial values, attitudes and behaviour.

• Availability of funding which allows building human capital as much as creation of enterprise, which will promote social entrepreneurship among youth.

• Easing of the social entrepreneurship environment to make it aspirational for young people.

This chapter focusses on the Indian youth landscape, outlines social entrepreneurship, sets out a framework and methodology for the Action Plan with key outcomes and further examines the scope of the Action Plan in promoting social entrepreneurship as a strategy for the social and financial inclusion of the youth population.

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nYP PoliCY 2014, Government Schemes and Scope For Promoting Social entrepreneurship

The NYP 2014 aims at empowering young people to realise their full potential. The five objectives of the policy focus on different lenses of youth empowerment.

No. Objectives Priority areas Lens of youth empowerment

1 Create a productive workforce that can make a sustainable contribution to India’s economic development

• Education • Employment • Skill development

entrepreneurship

Economist

2 Develop a strong and healthy generation equipped to take on future challenges

• Health and healthy lifestyle • Sports

Social awareness

3 Instil social values and promote community service to build national ownership

• Promotion of social values • Community engagement

Youth for development

4 Facilitate participation and civic engagement at levels of governance

• Participation in politics and governance

• Youth engagement

Youth-centric development

5 Support youth at risk and create equitable opportunity for all disadvantaged and marginalised groups

• Inclusion • Social justice

Youth for development and youth development

Table 3: Five Objectives of NYP 2014

NYP Policy 2014, Government Schemes and Scope or Promoting Social Entrepreneurship

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As discussed in the previous chapter, youth in India come from diverse social and economic backgrounds with different sets of challenges, needs and aspirations. The MoYAS, as the key ministry to implement NYP recommendations, has the challenge of coordinating and giving directions and guidelines to different departments and institutions which are directly and indirectly responsible for achieving the objectives of the NYP 2014. The Ministry, therefore, needs to examine the different lenses that each of the objectives emphasise and create guidelines to prioritise the youth development perspective in achieving these objectives.

2.1 Social Entrepreneurship in NYP 2014

The NYP 2014 recognises entrepreneurship as a priority area to achieve Objective 1 and mentions it as a future imperative to achieve Objective 3. As a priority area to achieve Objective 1, the policy document recognises that entrepreneurship has the potential to increase economic growth in India. Given that 50 per cent of the labour force is currently self-employed, and small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) employ 70 million people which accounts for approximately 15 per cent of the labour force, entrepreneurship is an important part of the Indian economy.21 the policy encourages entrepreneurship among youth through the development of necessary training programmes and financing options to generate sustainable self-employment.

Although there are several programmes that the NYP 2014 mentions, outlined in Chapter 1, the NYP 2014 also outlines various areas of improvement of the current initiatives in parts such as outreach and information provision, scale and inclusion, programme quality and relevance, and monitoring and evaluation.22

As a future imperative to instil social values and promote community service as a priority area, the policy identifies social entrepreneurship as a

means for community engagement. This builds upon the idea of transitioning from volunteerism to sustainable development. The underlying assumption markets ‘social entrepreneurship’ as a viable career option that can impact the community as well as the individual at a micro-scale.

By acknowledging the above-mentioned purpose of social entrepreneurship, the policy creates a wider scope for promoting social entrepreneurship in achieving the objectives of NYP 2014.

Table 4 provides some highlights on the scope of social entrepreneurship in achieving the other objectives.

To strengthen the potential of social entrepreneurship, the nyp 2014 has identified the need to have youth targeted outreach programmes through making information on different schemes available to youth through the NYKS. This can be further built on through the creation of NYKS youth club hubs for developing entrepreneurial capacities among young people. Similarly, in colleges, NSS can take up the mandate of collating and disseminating information on various schemes and organising entrepreneurship fairs and summits in their respective areas.

The policy also indicates the scope for developing and customising entrepreneurship learning programmes specific to the needs and reality of young people. The Rajiv Gandhi National Institute of Youth Development (RGNIYD), as a training organisation, can support the NYKS and NSS to develop relevant entrepreneurial learning programmes.

2.2 Enabling Inter-ministerial and Inter-institutional Convergences at Different Levels to Promote Social Entrepreneurship

Besides the NYP 2014, there are other policy documents and other government ministries

21 National Youth Policy. 2014.22 National Youth Policy. 2014.

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S. no. Objectives Priority areas Scope for promoting social entrepreneurship (SE)

1 create a productive workforce that can make a sustainable contribution to India’s economic development

education Employment and skills development entrepreneurship

This objective outlines the importance of quality education by focussing on lifelong learning, vocation of education and promotion of skill development. It lends the possibility of developing an entrepreneurial mindset and skills through curriculum reform It also suggests a public-private partnership model in education, which can widen the scope of social enterprises in the education sector

2 Develop a strong and healthy generation equipped to take on future challenges

Health and healthy lifestyle sports

The policy calls for improved service delivery and setting up of healthcare facilities for easy access

It also places emphasis on awareness programmes on adolescent health and youth lifestyle choices, preventive healthcare and women’s health. SE can be a possible mechanism to address these issues

The scope for SE can also be explored in the two priority areas of increasing sports facilities and training and the promotion of sports culture among youth.

3 Instil social values and promote community service to build national ownership

Promotion of social values Community engagement

SE is recognised as a future imperative under this objective. It recognises promotion of social values as an imperative and the importance of strengthening youth organisations to promote community engagement. It also calls for seed funding for SE and the creation of an enabling environment

4 Facilitate participation and civic engagement at levels of governance

Participation in politics and governance Youth engagement

This objective emphasises developing youth engagement and leadership in governance. It legitimises the importance of youth voice in decision making. The scope of SE initiatives to develop youth leadership in both social and political space can be leveraged

5 Support youth at risk and create equitable opportunity for all disadvantaged and marginalised groups

Inclusion Social justice

This objective focusses on the need to address the challenges that marginalised youth groups face. Social enterprises often focus on the issues of the marginalised and are therefore able to address the challenge of these groups in innovative ways. Further, promotion of SE in the youth groups from these communities can nurture leadership from within these communities to take the initiative in developing innovative solutions

Table 4: Scope for Promoting Social Entrepreneurship


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implementing initiatives to promote social entrepreneurship. To channel policies and initiatives effectively, the directions outlined in the NYP 2014 need to be seen in conjunction with other ministries’ initiatives.

The National Policy for Skill Development and Entrepreneurship 2015, developed by the Ministry of Skill Development and Entrepreneurship (MoSDE), recognises the need to foster social entrepreneurship and innovation. It mentions social enterprises ‘as important business instruments to address the issues of poverty, unemployment and inequity in society, through socially oriented business innovations.’23

Apart from the MoYAS and MoSDE, other ministries such as the Ministry of Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises (MoSME), the Ministry of Rural Development (MoRD) and the Ministry of Finance (MoF) have schemes which help to support social entrepreneurship development among youth.

The MoYAS needs to build partnerships with these ministries and departments to coordinate young entrepreneurial programmes and initiatives, and create a support group for youth interested in pursuing social entrepreneurship. Coordination with other ministries and departments can support the potential entrepreneurs by providing various options for funding support to volunteers to conceptualise and roll-out their enterprises and various options to gain experience for running social enterprises through participation in such initiatives.

To reach these objectives, the MoYAS needs to take the lead in organising meetings and programme planning to ensure NYKS and NSS mandates are included in the respective ministry’s work plans. In addition, it needs to develop and share a White Paper to enable different ministries to include a youth development approach in their programming and budgeting.

Some of the government schemes, which the MoYAS can capitalise on to promote social entrepreneurship, are:

1. Ministry of Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises

Scheme of Fund for Regeneration of Traditional Industries (SFURTI): this initiative seeks to organise traditional industries and artisans into clusters to make them competitive. It also intends to provide support for their long-term sustainability and sustained employment to enhance the marketability of products in these clusters. Finally, it seeks to equip traditional artisans of the associated clusters with the improved skills and build new models of public-private partnerships, gradually replicating similar models of cluster-based regenerated traditional industries.

Opportunity area: NYKS and NSS volunteers can undertake a mapping exercise to understand the possibility of potential enterprises in traditional industries.

Scheme for supporting five selected universities/colleges to run 1,200 entrepreneurship clubs per annum. The entrepreneur clubs are intended to create a platform for entrepreneurs to come together through workshops/seminars, discuss common issues and identify solutions in areas such as obtaining certifications, participating in trade fairs, and implementing quality management tools, etc.

Opportunity area: This can be incorporated in the regular NSS activity at the college levels. Colleges can set up entrepreneur clubs under the NSS programme, which can provide opportunities to youth to development innovative projects based on their interests and passions.

Scheme of ‘Trade Related Entrepreneurship Assistance and Development (TREAD) for Women’: This initiative runs training programmes through micro, small and medium enterprises and development institutions for the empowerment of women beneficiaries. The initiative provides participants with a grant to undergo training activities.24

23 http://www.skilldevelopment.gov.in/assets/images/Skill%20India/policy%20booklet-%20Final.pdf.24 Ministry of Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises. 2014. TREAD Scheme. Retrieved from http://www.dcmsme.gov.in/schemes/tread-guidlines-scheme.pdf.

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25 Indian Banks’ Association. 2016. Stand-Up India Scheme. Retrieved from https://www.standupmitra.in/Home/SUISchemes.26 Ministry of Rural Development. 2011. Swarnjayanti Gram Swarozgar Yojana Guidelines. Retrieved from http://www.rural.nic.in/sites/downloads/programmes-schemes/prog-schemes-sgsy.pdf.

Opportunity area: NYKS and NSS women volunteers can draw upon financial and non-financial resources to fulfil their aspirations to start enterprises.

2. Ministry of Employment and Labour

the Prime Minister’s Employment Generation Programme (PMEGP) is a credit-linked subsidy programme launched by the MoSME for the creation of employment in both rural and urban areas of the country.

Opportunity area: NSS and NYKS volunteers can set up enterprises which can create wealth and livelihood opportunities for other young people in their communities.

3. Ministry of Commerce and Industry

Startup India is a flagship initiative of the Government of India (GoI) intended to build a strong eco-system for nurturing innovation and startups in the country that will drive sustainable economic growth and generate large-scale employment opportunities. The government, through this initiative, aims to empower startups to grow through innovation and design.

Opportunity area: Allocate 25 per cent of funds to support young people coming through NYKS and NSS volunteering programmes to set up social enterprises.

4. Ministry of Finance

Standup India: This scheme will promote entrepreneurship among youth from Schedule Castes (SC) and Schedule Tribes (ST), and women entrepreneurs. The scheme is intended to facilitate at least two green field projects in the areas of manufacturing or trade per bank branch, on an average, one for each category of entrepreneur. It is expected to benefit at least 2.5 lakh borrowers.25

Opportunity area: Support NYKS and NSS volunteers from the marginalised sections of the population.

5. NITI Aayog

Self-Employment and Talent Utilisation (SETU) is a techno-financial, incubation and facilitation programme to support all aspects of start-up businesses, and other self-employment activities, particularly in technology-driven areas.

Opportunity area: Linkages with NYKS youth clubs as innovation hubs at the district level.

6. Ministry of Rural Development

the Deen Dayal Upadhyaya Grameen Kaushalya Yojana (DDU-GKY) bridges the gap between education for poor rural youth and the skills required by the modern market, by funding training projects benchmarked to global standards with an emphasis on placement, retention, career progression and foreign placement.

under the Swarnjayanti Gram Swarozgar Yojana (SGSY), assistance is given to the poor families living below the poverty line in rural areas for self-employment. People undertaking self-employment are called swarozgaris. These individuals may take up various income generating activities which are chosen based on the availability of local resources and their skills, in a group or individually.26

Opportunity area: Support rural youth to develop their entrepreneurial ideas into actions through developing their entrepreneurial skills and mindsets.

The immense scope that the current policy environment is providing can be unleashed fully by the MoYAS to support volunteers through:


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• Providing access to information about the schemes of different ministries and departments.

• Widening the scope in NSS and NYKS volunteering programme design to leverage such schemes to promote social entrepreneurship among the volunteers.

• Prioritising the NSS and NYKS as learning programmes to support young people’s ability to develop entrepreneurial mindsets.

The MoYAS needs to focus on convergence and coordination amongst various ministries

– specifically, the MoSDE, MoRD, MoSME and MoHRD – departments, civil society organisations and the corporate sector. The MoYAS will also need to lead and support the other ministries to develop a working paper indicating the processes and guidelines for youth empowerment through the youth development lens.

This chapter highlights the scope for social entrepreneurship within the NYP 2014 framework. It also identifies the opportunities that exist in the current policy and government environment to promote social entrepreneurship among young people.

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In recent years, youth volunteering has received significant attention. Around the world, countries are viewing volunteering as an important strategy to harness the energy of youth. The NYP 2014 views volunteering as a process to reach out to young people by creating opportunities where the community benefits from the energy of youth.27 The MoYAS primarily operates through the NYKS and NSS, two large youth volunteering institutions. The NSS has more than 3.25 million volunteers while the NYKS, one of the largest volunteering programmes in India, has more than 8 million volunteers. Both institutions use volunteering as a means for youth engagement. The NYP 2014’s policy recommendations will be implemented through these volunteering programmes and, thus, it is important to understand the current volunteer ecosystem in India.

3.1 Understanding Youth Volunteering in India

Historically, volunteering in India has been a way of life. In almost all communities, especially in rural and tribal areas, volunteering, though not formally acknowledged, has existed in various forms.

Over the years, volunteering opportunities have increased manifold in India. There are hundreds of thousands of non-governmental organisations (NGOs), religious charities, political parties, cooperatives and various other organisations working across the country in virtually every

YouTh VolunTeerismand Social entrepreneurship

sector, many of which rely on youth volunteers. These organisations play a pivotal role in the development process in sectors such as education, health, agriculture, rural sanitation and others.

Volunteering opportunities have enabled young people to address concerns of their own societies. These opportunities have given them a sense of purpose, belonging and a sense that they are contributing to a bigger cause where they would otherwise have very limited say. Volunteering also exposes youth to other aspects of society and introduces them to careers they may not have considered.

In independent India, the journey of volunteering in India has gone through various phases. The post-liberalisation period influenced the volunteering space through changing the nature of volunteer engagement. Youth expectations and interests have also changed. Today middle-class youth have other stronger pulls and volunteering occupies only a small part of their mind space and time. Typically, young persons have four legitimate spaces where they spend their time: family, education/career, leisure and lifestyle, and friends. The volunteering space sits in the fringes with very little family or societal sanction. The current trend in youth volunteering shows that young people engage in volunteering opportunities in short bursts when there is a lull in the other four spaces.28 The following challenges in youth volunteering spaces need

27 National Youth Policy. 2014.28 Patel et al. 2013. The Ocean in a Drop – Inside-out youth leadership. New Delhi: Sage Publications India.

Youth Volunteerism and Social Entrepreneurship

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to be addressed to ensure more sustained youth engagement:

1) Adult Led vs youth Led: Most volunteering opportunities today are organised and offered by development organisations which are governed by adults. These organisations engage young people based on cause – the ‘call for duty’ approach. There is a need to create youth-led volunteering spaces to enable youth to be more autonomous and promote sustained engagement with organisations.

2) tokenism Vs Ownership: Since most organised volunteering spaces are adult governed, ownership rests with the adults. Adults are usually apprehensive about their level of commitment and therefore allow minimalistic participation in decision making. While the expectation is that young volunteers will take ownership for their work, the decision making is mostly governed by the adults. This leaves young people with a low level of ownership. It is evident, when youth have full ownership they are more likely to be committed and ensure sustainability of their efforts.

3) Activity vs Journey: As mentioned earlier, most volunteering opportunities are issue-based and young people join on a short-term basis. Due to this type of participation, they are often unaware of how their work fits in the big picture. Such opportunities hardly have any scope for volunteers to reflect on the work that they do and their experiences during volunteering. Such reflections on relationships, attitude towards community, level of ownership and leadership styles play a part in the volunteer’s sustained level of commitment to the organisation and project.

4) Learning vs Achievement: Volunteering programmes are very often designed to focus on the achievement of targets and not so much on learning from these experiences. Therefore, most of the time, such opportunities get reduced to target-driven work rather than opportunities to develop ones’ skills.

Given these realities, the youth volunteering space has to reimagine itself to be able to attract young people for a sustained period. To do this, organisations need to offer opportunities for youth to develop leadership capabilities and help them influence the four priority spaces listed above.

Given below are some examples of volunteer opportunities that help to develop the skills of youth.

SMILE: Students Mobilisation Initiative for Learning through Exposure (SMILE) mobilises campus youth (ages 17–25) through hands-on exposure to development issues. Its aim is for each volunteer to undertake the programme ‘From Me to Us’ and through this process engage in acting for social change. To enable these young people to become agents of social change, the intervention also develops their competencies through a series of workshops on life skills, campaigns on social issues, meetings and events and volunteering/exchange opportunities with NGOs in Delhi and other areas. Nurtured by Pravah, SMILE offers a unique opportunity to young people for experiential learning. It facilitates the process of decision-making, based on stances and values, and helps youth to learn about communities and related issues directly.

Community Connect Fellowship: initiated by Blue Ribbon Movement, the Community Connect Fellowship is a seven-month leadership development programme empowering youth to be active citizens through service learning. It is a constructive approach to bridge the gap between citizens and government authorities. The programme involves 80 hours of learning sessions and 50 hours of action. Through this initiative, young people develop leadership capabilities by taking charge of volunteers, and their teamwork, communication and entrepreneurial skills.

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Source: Patel et al. 2013. The Ocean in a Drop – Chapter 4: Inside-Out Youth Leadership. New Delhi: Sage Publications India.

• Help with peer learning. • Offer mentoring support.

These markers, when embedded in the volunteering programmes, can help increase the importance of volunteering in youth’s lives. This reimagined space is what we would like to name as a fifth space, a space which facilitates self-transformation among young people as they transform their communities.

3.2 How can Volunteering Become a Vehicle for Social Entrepreneurship?

Social entrepreneurship is a key lever to promote social, psychological and financial inclusion of the youth in India. However, neither the Indian education system nor society at large offers many initiatives to promote entrepreneurial learning. By incorporating the fifth space into young peoples’ priorities, it could provide a space for youth to develop entrepreneurial competencies.

From our conversations with established and budding entrepreneurs, we learnt that triggers for

International Citizen Service (ICS): it is a three-month volunteering programme by Pravah and Voluntary Service Overseas (VSO), funded by the United Kingdom government. As an ICS volunteer or an ICS team leader, volunteer placements are structured so that volunteers work in a community, positively impacting community initiatives while developing their own skills and capacities in the development sector.

These volunteer programmes are unique as they:

• Focus on self-transformation while engaging with others (self to society).

• Develop leadership skills attitudes and values through workshops, exposure opportunities and internships, and action projects.

• Introduce a well-defined and designed learning journey (through curriculum).

• Focus on experiential learning through community engagement.

• Offer cross border engagement opportunities.• Present the opportunity to learn through

action and reflection.

Diagram 1: Five Spaces for Youth


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social entrepreneurship ideas emerge from the personal experience of the social entrepreneurs. They suggested that the ability to identify social problems and generate innovative solutions comes from real world experiences.

By encouraging experiential learning, the fifth space creates hands-on experiences to connect body, mind and soul and therefore inspire action. Such opportunities also enable young people to conduct low risk experiments which can foster entrepreneurial ability. Since fifth space experiments are youth-led, it gives youth an opportunity to make decisions and take risks, two very critical competencies of entrepreneurs.

By creating opportunities for young people to intern and dialogue with established entrepreneurs, it is possible to encourage young people to choose social entrepreneurship as a possible career option.

We believe that when a volunteer programme has well-defined markers, it allows young people to be part of a learning journey. By defining these critical markers within the volunteering programme and aligning them with entrepreneurial capacities, individuals will be able to transition from volunteers to ‘voluntrepreneurs’.

3.3 Case Studies of Volunteer Programmes Developing Entrepreneurial Capacity among Youth

CHANGELOOMS

Changelooms encourages, recognises and supports young leaders to achieve their potential to lead social change initiatives through exciting opportunities for intensive learning, inspiration, mentorship, visibility and fundraising. Young activists with innovative ideas are mentored to put their ideas into action and become a social entrepreneur. The programme offers the following initiatives for a learning journey:

• Changeovers are encouraged to explore their leadership potential, starting from within by examining their own self-awareness.

• The Development Centre enables the changeloomers to deepen their intervention and strategies and to build skills to design and facilitate high impact learning spaces.

• Mentoring: Each changeloomer is assigned a mentor who helps them to develop their personal and public leadership skills.

• Visibility support: Changeloomers are supported to draw up action plans to help them design and demonstrate their social change initiatives, messages and actions.

• Seed funding: Based on their action plans and mentoring discussions, each changeloomer can apply for a small amount of funding to help them to carry out or scale up their projects.

• Network linkages: Bringing together various youth collectives and actions, liaising with youth initiatives and partners and help with various social campaigns.

YOUNG SOCIAL PIONEERS PROGRAMME – AUSTRALIA

Young Social Pioneers (YSP) began with a national competition, the Innovation Nation, which called for young people’s ideas to create a better Australia. Hundreds of ideas were generated and connected to the application process for YSP.

Over six months, Pioneers underwent a learning journey that involved intensive face-to-face three-day residential learning “touch points”. The first examined innovation practice and process, the second looked at how to turbocharge your venture, and the last was a “pitch up”. They pitched their ideas to a live audience before a panel of judges for seed funding between $5,000 and $10,000 per stream (supported by their stream sponsor). Following the third touch point, all participants were invited to be part of the Foundation for Young Australians’ (FYA’s) Unleashed Festival and awards – Australia’s largest annual gathering of young changemakers and entrepreneurs. Alumni were invited to apply to undertake a masterclass

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on communication training in the Colin James method and were given mentors to hone their pitches for further funding ($10,000).29

UNLTD INDIA

UnLtd India is an incubating organisation working in India and supports young social entrepreneurs. The journey offers the following components:

• Hands-on coaching and training: on business and financial planning, fundraising, legal structures, governance, marketing and human resource management.

• High-value connections: Links with mentors, peers and experts in various fields, and funders and investors.

• Seed funding: To pay for critical early startup costs and support youth ventures.

In this chapter, the scope of volunteering as a space for developing social entrepreneurship among young people were examined. Given the interest and engagement of young people in volunteering, there is a need to reimagine the space. Young people need to be able to enhance their skills through internships and volunteering, therefore volunteering programmes should recast themselves as a capacity building vehicle for youth.

29 Accelerating young entrepreneurs’ ideas to change the world: Findings from the Young Social Pioneers evaluation 2015, Foundation for Young Australians October 2015.


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As stated earlier, the MoYAS has three autonomous bodies – the NSS, NYKS and RGNIYD – each working towards fulfilling the vision of the NYP 2014. These three institutions reach out to large numbers of young people and engage them through volunteering and education programmes The NYKS reaches out to more than 83 lakh young people spread over 623 districts through 2.7330 lakh youth clubs. The NSS supports around 3.231 million college students from more than 290 colleg

Documents

Turn The Tide - UNDP · Turn the Tide – Amplifying Social Entrepreneurship Through Youth Volunteering, on the other hand, looks at developing the skills of youth to create employment