Resource Challenged Adolescents from Salaam Bombay Foundation’s Vocational Skills Programme and Supported by TRENT Limited Showcased
Their 21st Century Skills Through Hi-Tech Projects Inspiring a Problem Solving and Innovative Mindset Amongst Peers
Pune (Voice News Service): Salaam Bombay Foundation (SBF) in partnership with TRENT Limited organised an exhibition ‘TECHVISION’ at Dnyanada Prashala, a government-aided school where 30 Class 9 students (hailing from slums and studying in govt. and govt. aided schools) from the Robotics programme exhibited 14 smart technology solutions. These state-of-the-art projects were developed by the students with the goal to help solve everyday problems. Some of the projects included ‘Patient Health Monitoring System’, ‘Smart Shoes’, ‘Automatic Plant Watering System’, ‘Fire Fighting Robot’ and ‘Temperature & Humidity Control System’ among others. The event was graced by Dr. Shobha Khandare – Joint Director SCERT, Ms. Prachi Pasalkar – Programme Manager, Pune Knowledge Cluster, Pune and Former MP Ashokrao Mohol.
Commenting on the event, Gaurav Arora, Chief Growth Officer and Sr. Vice President – Skills, Salaam Bombay Foundation said, “At Salaam Bombay Foundation we focus on equipping our beneficiaries with critical 21st century skills through a multidisciplinary approach. These skills of the future are necessary to navigate a continually evolving society and job market. These adolescents hail from backgrounds that would typically make it difficult for them to access skills such as Robotics, depriving them of the opportunity to explore their interest and aptitude, besides pursuing fulfilling careers in the future. Salaam Bombay Foundation understands this is the need of the hour and like their privileged urban counterparts, these adolescents too deserve a chance of a promising future.”
Arshiya Mecklai, Lead CSR and Employee Volunteering, TRENT Limited added,“We are immensely proud to watch these resource challenged adolescents present their projects with such confidence and knowledge. We are happy with the impact that we have been able to achieve as a close collaborator and partner of Salaam Bombay Foundation’s skill development programmes. A multipronged approach of skilling these adolescents while providing them with platforms such as TECHVISION to hone and showcase their skills, not only builds employability skills but also their aspirations. This is key to ensuring these adolescents, who are otherwise at risk of dropping out of school, instead see value in pursuing their education while preparing them for jobs of the future.”
In 2022, 4 alumni students from the Robotics and Mobile Repair programmes were selected to represent India at The First Global Challenge 2022 (FGC 2022), an Olympics-style, international robotics competition that was conducted in Geneva, Switzerland. Team India was selected by the STEM Education trust following a stringent selection process involving highly experienced robotics student-teams from across the country. With support and guidance, our students designed, built and programmed a Robot in line with the theme of the challenge – Carbon Capture. Team India performed well, ranking 27 out of 180 countries overall and also winning gold for the Sofia Kovalevskaya Award for International Journey.
Salaam Bombay Foundation’s vocational skill development programme has trained more than 35,000 resource-challenged adolescents since inception in 2014 across locations in India including Mumbai, Pune, Bengaluru, Kolkata, Jaipur, Nashik and Kymore.
Multidisciplinary approach for development of 21st century skills among resource-challenged adolescents
Salaam Bombay Foundation takes a multidisciplinary approach for development of 21st century skills among resource-challenged adolescents. Salaam Bombay Foundation started in 2002 to work with 12 to 18 year-old adolescent children growing up in urban slums. These children live in extreme poverty and in “at risk” environments. The municipal schools they go to do not have the resources to give them individual attention, career guidance or access to activities that stimulate the mind.
Many are undernourished and face the risk of substance abuse. They come from financially challenged homes and are pressured to drop out of secondary school and seek jobs to support their families. Given these ground realities, Salaam Bombay Foundation has harnessed the ability of child-friendly, innovative education tools to develop life skills and coping skills necessary to ensure that these adolescents develop into well rounded personalities, able to meet the challenges they face and take on leadership roles within their communities.
The Foundation keeps children in school by empowering them to make the right choices about their health, education and livelihood thereby ensuring that they can thrive with a bright future. In-school leadership and advocacy programmes equip “at-risk” adolescents with the life skills they need to lead change. The Sports, Arts and Media academies encourage them to express themselves and provide performance opportunities that build self-esteem. The skills@school programme broadens their career horizons and empowers them with vocational skills for sustainable careers. Through its DreamLab initiative, SBF, has provided for a continuum of skills training and market-based internships to youngsters in the age group of 14 and 18 years. Launched in July 2019, DreamLab, has been able to furnish stipend-based internships to hundreds of skills@school alumni across nine job sectors. DreamLab also creates a talent pool of grassroot entrepreneurial adolescents. Salaam Bombay initiatives increase confidence, give vulnerable adolescents the means to earn part-time and stay in school, and provide the tools to explore their full potential.
Through the different academies at Salaam Bombay Foundation, we work on the key areas under CSR Schedule VII – Preventive Health, Mental Wellbeing, Vocational Skills, Sports, Arts, and Media for the resource-challenged adolescents from government and government-aided schools.
