Vocational Training . . .

Today was a red letter day in the history of the hospital. 

As part of our work in this region, I've always dreamed about starting some form of vocational training for the youth in the communities around us. The reason being that there were quite a lot of young men and women who dropped out of school. Most of them were into odd jobs. Those who had fields did a bit of farming. But, those who did not have fields resorted to manual labour as well as migration to faraway regions for unskilled labour. 

There have been discussions about what all courses we could do. The plans were for courses for electrical maintenance and repair, driving etc for young men and tailoring for women. 

Dinesh, our maintenance manager was quite enthusiastic about starting the program in driving and electrical maintenance. However, because of the major workload in the unit, the program never took off. We looked for other people who could shoulder the responsibility, but failed. 

Then, there was a chance meeting with one of our partner organisations, who introduced us to a lady who used to teach tailoring. That gave us the idea to start off a tailoring school for women. 

The school was inaugurated today by our Panchayat Pramukh, Mrs. Urmila Devi. There was not much funds to start off this venture. As you can see from the snap, we've used a old house in the other campus to house the class. 34 students have enrolled for the first batch which would extend upto 6 months. 

I hope although this is a very small beginning, we would be able to see this venture growing so that more young men and women will benefit.