Antarang Foundation

Why is it that close to 70 million adolescents in India can only survive, not thrive? Why are they told that they cannot have a dream? Why is it that they do not get the same opportunities as their more privileged peers? My organization, Antarang Foundation enables adolescents from the poorest quartile of India to aspire for careers that would help them break the intergenerational cycle of poverty.

Through a three-pronged approach of building awareness of opportunities, the ability to make informed decisions, and access to opportunities, Antarang has enabled more than 90,000 adolescents to aspire for careers and get on the pathways to achieve them. Further, we have also seen a higher education/ vocational education enrolment rate of close to 82%, against a state average of 32% (AISHE 2018-19). We will use the Elevate Prize to democratize career opportunities by

1. enabling half a million urban -poor adolescents from 5 cities in India to aspire for careers of their choice by providing intensive career guidance and access to opportunities that would orbit them out of poverty and 

2. advocating for the inclusion of careers as a subject in high schools across the country to help adolescents make informed transitions. 

In 2012, two young men - one who was putting himself through college by working a grueling 12-hour job and another who was a school dropout, also doing the same job came to meet me - both were due to be promoted to the same position. The soon-to-be college graduate wondered why he was toiling when he could drop out and become the same store manager. That is when the realization hit that there was no systemic bridge that helped disadvantaged adolescents make informed transitions from school to work. What started as a small pilot with 20 first-generation learners in a shack in a low-income community in Mumbai, today enables ~55,000 adolescents year on year to make these informed transitions into careers of choice. Antarang Foundation envisions a world where every young adult is passionately, productively, and positively engaged in a career of her/his choice. 

Antarang is on track to democratizing career opportunities by enabling 2.5 million youth to make successful school-to-work transitions by 2030. We are in the process of building a collaborative platform that brings adolescents, school systems, and industry together to enable career exploration and informed career decisions for all, thus bringing equity in career opportunities. 

More than 70 million youth in India live on less than $8 a month, with little access to healthcare or quality education, thus severely limiting their ability to aspire for a future that enables socio-economic progress.  Less than 27% of them actually complete school. Around 30% of them cited economic factors and the inability to cope with education as primary reasons for dropping out of school. High dropout rates lead to unemployment or low-wage employment that perpetuates the intergenerational cycle of poverty. It is this lack of awareness and access to opportunity that perpetuates social and economic inequity that Antarang is solving for. 

Antarang Foundation is a registered Indian not-for-profit organization that enables adolescents and young adults to make the transition from education to employment. Antarang’s model focuses on the simple philosophy that young adults have an innate sense of agency once they know what and how to. We 

1. Build awareness of career opportunities 

2. Build clear aspiration

3. Build employability skills and the ability to make informed career decisions 

4. Provide access to career opportunities 

From the year 2021, Antarang has started embedding phygital career campuses in government schools to institutionalize career exploration and school-to-work transition support for high school students.

Antarang’s work brings a familiar medical analogy to solve the opportunity gap in employment and incomes. Just as any chronic ailment requires both prevention and cure; an informed school-to-work transition requires adolescents to stay in school and have a clear aspiration (prevention) and the ability and access to opportunities (cure). 

Just as you would see a doctor when you are unwell, you would see a career facilitator when you need any help with your future plans. 

We solved for one of the critical root causes and leveraged a key strength - build awareness and aspiration and leverage innate agency. We are now in the process of harnessing technology to strengthen the agency.

Our novel approach involves the following components:

1. Embedding ‘Careers’ as part of the school curriculum is a bold step in leveling the playing field

2. Embedding phygital career campuses in the formal education system will bring high-end digital access to the less privileged

3. A Career Chatbot that provides 24*7 career support at one's fingertips

4. All of these are envisioned to be part of a digital Career Tracker that maps a young student’s journey and encourages her to reach milestones en route to her career destination

Poverty is intergenerational and self-fulfilling. There is an established hierarchy in education in India - the poorest enroll into low-resourced, poor quality public schools. Families with low disposable incomes often send their children to low-income private schools of middling quality. 

Antarang works with government schools and low-income private schools and colleges. Career guidance is practically non-existent in Indian schools. Antarang provides high-end career guidance and counseling to over 56,000 adolescents across 3 cities,  enabling them to build career aspirations, clear career plans, and make successful transitions to higher education/ vocational training thereby breaking their intergenerational cycle of poverty and enabling social mobility. 

Antarang has worked with over 95,000 students over the last 8 years. 64% of our beneficiaries have been adolescent girls, with 76% of them leaving the program with a clear career choice. More than 86% of all students are in education, employment, or training as compared to the national averages of more than 50% of students who do not complete high school. 

20% more girls transition into work if they have parent support. An external evaluation of the program showed that 94% of girls found the awareness and exposure to careers very useful in influencing their parents.