Youth4Jobs SwarajAbility

World Bank states that India has 60-70 million persons with disabilities. 70% are unemployed/underemployed, according to the World Bank. Less than 0.5% are employed with the NIFTY FIFTY companies. The situation is not uniform across all disabilities and much worse for women. ILO states making PwDs employable translates to a 5-7% increase in GDP. Right to Persons with Disabilities(PwD) Act, 2016, for the first time, highlighted the right of a PwD to education and employment. There are available solutions like: job fairs, conventional job portals where all applicants are treated equally, job aggregators - acting as facilitators and company services – to ensure a sensitive eco-sphere. However, none of these solutions provide a comprehensive solution to PwD employment.

The reason for inadequacy of existing solutions is the scale of the problem which needs multiple stakeholders across different sectors to join hands and come up with a scalable solution that is fully accessible, technologically viable and available across the length and breadth of India. Additionally, the solution would have to be mindful of every feature to be suited to all 21 disabilities. For example, how will a person with hearing impairment absorb the visual content on the screen? Or how would a person with partial visual impairment notice the submit button on a form? The solution then should be a solution that covers every aspect of disability and gives the candidate confidence that is a customised platform for their employability needs.  Hence bringing the candidate in direct contact with multinational, national and local employers.

From a company perspective, SwarajAbility offers the choice to recruit a range of PwDs with different disabilities, educational qualifications and trainings. And support to on-board them in the workplace.  The solution, using technology, aims to make the process seamless for all candidates with disabilities and stakeholders involved in the value chain of linking them to a job, whether company, NGO or government.

Youth4Jobs’ largest and latest technology investment is in South Asias’ first AI triggered accessible jobs platform exclusively for Persons with Disabilities. The idea originated at MIT when we were Asia winners of MIT Inclusive Innovation Challenge Asia in 2019. The jury told our Founder, Ms. Meera Shenoy that the next logical step, since we had a large supply pool of youth and large demand pool of companies, was a cutting edge job platform for the disabled. Back in India, she raised funds and brought together quality partners to create SwarajAbility. “SwarajAbility” is a combination of two words, Swarajya - a Gandhian word which means independence - and “Ability” as we leverage Abilities of the disabled through tech, trainings and jobs.

Partners: Best of partners were brought together for the development of the platform- the Indian Institute of Technology Hyderabad (IITH), the leading institute in computer science, contributed by enhancing the functionality by drafting cutting edge algorithms for job matching, Principal Scientific Advisor to Government of India, gave critical inputs. Youth4Jobs brought its rich experience in skilling, disability space and job linkages. CII(IBDN), India’s leading business network and ILO are on-boarded subsequently as partners. Leading technology and marketing experts commit their time and expertise pro-bono for the unique high impact initiative, like Srini Koppolu, who had built Microsoft research and development team in India.

Features: Right from its inception, Persons with Disability have been the heart of the design of the jobs portal. Even before a feature goes online it is thoroughly tested by a team of Persons with Disability who suggest changes and point out details which are then incorporated in the design of the portal. Along with that we adhere to global WCAG 2.1 standards for web accessibility. Youth with disability from a remote village without a smart phone can register for job and Sign language videos are available for speech and hearing impaired. Virtual Mentor, Easy Registration forms, simple application process and AI recommended jobs are readily available in the candidate dashboard.

For employers, now fulfilling the ESG Mandate is just a few clicks away with a wider choice of candidates with disabilities, not available on non-disabled platforms. For example, many companies begin by hiring locomotor disabilities, then move on to hire visually impaired or neuro-diverse youth.  For NGO’s and other educational institutions, SwarajAbility is one solution to linking jobs to their data pool of unemployed or trained youth. For governments, the platform helps enhance employment of a vulnerable section of society seamlessly by linking their unemployed PwDs data base.

SwarajAbility caters to a varied community of different users: Candidates, Employers, NGO’s and Institutions and finally Govt. Organizations. With security as a prominent feature while handling different data pockets, all of the end-users interact with their own lake of data which is relevant to their login.

• Candidates with any of the 21 disabilities as defined by the Right to PwD Act, 2016. Every candidate that logs into the portal is pushed a set of job recommendations directly to his dashboard. The candidate can also search for jobs across the platform to understand the demographics of jobs availability or the demand of skills in the market. All communication from the portal happens to the candidate via email and SMS.  

Naved, 26 is a Speech and Hearing Impaired trainee. When Naved was asked to register onto the portal post-training, he was worried it would be overwhelming. Thanks to sign-language enabled testimonials, and the sign-language assisted registration he felt motivated to explore. “The registration was so easy. And once I went past it my dream job was waiting in my dashboard as a recommended job. I just looked at it and applied and after a round of interview got selected in Amazon.” The portal helps track the entire lifecycle of a candidate to understand and mitigate hiccups both from the employers’ end as well as the candidates’ end. 

• Employers receive the applications of candidates. Employers have the choice to choose candidates directly and initiate them into the job life cycle. Additionally, employers can also avail services from the team of Youth4Jobs to get suggestions regarding candidates who are suitable for the job. This approach ensures the gentle human touch which is required to handle the vulnerable segment of the society, as opposed to imposing strict system processes to handle applications. “Diversity and Inclusion has been our motto right from the beginning and SwarajAbility is just what we needed to find and hire the right talent from the disability sector” - Pradeep Bethaveen, HR Head Southzone AMAZON India
• NGO’s and Institution use SwarajAbility with a unique social responsibility to ensure that the Persons with Disabilities who they come across as a result of their work, embark on a meaningful employment journey. For this they use their exclusive login to upload candidate data in bulk onto the portal. Once the candidate is uploaded they are requested to update their data and thereafter they become a mainstream candidate who can use every feature of the portal. The NGO’s and Institutions can stay up-to-date with the detailed journey of their candidates while continuing to retain the ownership of their candidates. 
• Govt. Organizations that have access to authentic candidate data from different states in India, are connected to the portal through an API connection. The portal receives the candidate data and the Govt. Organizations in-turn receive job placement reports about their candidates. One of the biggest problem for policy makers is lack of authentic data. The reports generated will help policy making of an oft-ignored vulnerable population.

Youth 4 Jobs Foundation is an action organisation with a heart working to ensure youth with disabilities can be poverty-free in India. Our focus is on building resilient livelihoods for both youth with disabilities, with a focus on the most vulnerable, women with disabilities. Towards this, we partner with governments, markets, and civil society to remove physical and attitudinal barriers and enable the scaling of evidence-based effective solutions. It is led by Meera Shenoy who has the unique experience of working in senior government positions, World Bank and UNDP. This transformational work has won several national and international awards.

Our vision is: Every youth with disability will be poverty free, Independent & Confident.

Our mission is: Partnering with stakeholders and vulnerable unreached communities to co-create pioneering solutions for inclusion.

In the last 12 years, our work has been a system changer – changing mindsets that youth with disabilities cannot work - in villages, on one hand and companies on the other. We are connected with over 800 NGO’s, 1200 + Employers and government organisations at the State and Center such as – Department of Empowerment of Persons with Disability, Ministry of Social Justice and Empowerment; 6 state governments; Ministry of Skilling and Entrepreneurship, UNICEF, ILO and more. Our diverse team of 300 members working pan-India across 57 physical centres ensure that difficult geographies are given equal importance, equipped to tackle every unique challenge that comes across their way. 30% of our workforce are Persons with Disabilities themselves. The strong networking of the team and timely updates to the management ensures that these challenge-opportunity-solution key points are constantly fed back into the system. This in-turn keeps the enthusiasm going for the team to build quality driven solutions that focus around Persons with Disability.   

Right from its inception, Persons with Disability have been the heart of the design of the jobs portal. With this focus, we approached ITQCR, Information Technology, Quality Certification and Research, a proficient Accessibility Testing Company in India, committed to providing outstanding Accessibility Testing and Compliance services to help organizations in becoming WCAG 2.0, WCAG 2.1 compliant. Through them we received our WCAG 2.1 Accessibility Testing Certificate which makes the portal AA Compliant.

Even before a feature goes online it is thoroughly tested by a team of Persons with Disability who suggest changes and point out details which are then incorporated in the design of the portal. Mallika a visually impaired student of our Hyderabad Center, once questioned her trainer, “If the portal is fully accessible, then can we apply to jobs on our own?” A very convinced Mallika, who is now employed with Alexa, Amazon volunteers today with us despite her full time job to help others like her navigate through the portal using tools such as JAWS.

We ensure that all content, including job postings, articles, and support resources, is accessible to individuals with various disabilities. This involves providing text alternatives, captions for multimedia content, and ensuring readability for users with cognitive disabilities.

Since its launch in October 2022, the portal has attracted a candidate base of 1,50000 with different disabilities register onto the portal. Of these there are approximately 20% graduates and 80% below graduate or less-educated. Almost 90% of them are freshers. From the pool of candidates we have, 85% are from rural India. The portal has posted over 50,000+ vacancies from 1200 + Employers. 

Companies who have benefitted from the business advantage of hiring from this special talent pool range from JP Morgan, Infosys, Amazon, Applied Materials India, Accenture and HDFC bank to name a few. Six State Govt’s and Two Central Govt. Departments, Ministry of Social Justice and Empowerment and Ministry of Rural Development have signed MOU’s with us to collaborate with SwarajAbility as their disability partner for placement and skilling Leading organizations in the skilling space, National Skill Development Corporatin, National Centre for Promotion of Employment for Disabled People and others have agreed to work with SwarajAbility.

The projected operating budget (in INR) for this data-led innovation for FY 2024-25 is INR 1,85,00,000/.  The multilanguage feature will make a tremendous impact on the use of the portal across the geography of India, since it will make the portal and its features available in 11 major Indian languages. 

As per Census 2011, in India about 26.8 million persons are ‘disabled’ which is 2.21% of the total population. Every 1 in 12 households has a disability. World Bank reports state that the number may be actually three times more, about 60 to 70 million. Yet they are unrepresented in spaces non-disabled take for granted.

Employment rates of persons with disability are barely 30% and mostly in the unorganized sector. This varies with geographical location (urban or rural), gender, education, and type of disability. An ILO study even shows that this results in a 5-7% loss of GDP because of their low labour market participation.

"Swarajability" is our data/tech innovation in our journey of skilling youth with disability and linking them to resilient livelihoods at scale. Data gathering and analysis is key to the scale we have achieved in 12 years – touching 12.1 million households with the message of “ability in disability” and impacting 590,000 youth with disabilities through counselling, up skilling and linkages to jobs/micro enterprises. We work with 1200+ companies pan India. With the kind of projected data that is expected to flow into SwarajAbility, an Analytic unit is proposed for analysis of this large volume of data. This will address a major data gap in disability and labour markets and influence policy. Mentorship in the area of Data Analytics, Technology required for Data Analysis and Reporting is the need of the hour since we believe we may be pioneering policy making for PwDs in India with the right kind of analysis of data of such volumes.

Moreover, everyday our team is challenged by a number of challenges that involve a marriage between technology and process and we are stuck in answering the question; Is it worth continuing to invest in technology to drive processes? Since we believe that our solution is a human-centered solution we are in the need of guidance from a pioneering organization or a group of organizations that can lead us through the identification of the right channels to create long-term solutions for the vulnerable sections of the market. Going through such a rigorous due-diligence process and having our solution reviewed in microscopic detail by such a renowned organization will help us validate our journey of innovation. 

Available in both web and mobile interface versions for maximum reach, the platform aids people with disabilities like visual, hearing impairment, and locomotive disorders to seek employment using simple, yet state-of-the-art technology. Features include:

• an accessible portal for all the 21 types of disabilities
• sign-language videos and testimonials for Speech and Hearing Impaired Persons to gain an understanding of the portal and be excited to be a part of the movement
• simplified registration forms for Persons with Disabilities
• AI based job matching algorithm which recommends jobs to the candidates
• Candidate engagement through SMS, Emails and Dashboard
• Ability to interact with the employers using additional means such as Reasonable Accommodation requests, Preferred Location indicators and more
• Regular job application and recommendation status updates that keep the candidate engaged
• Available in 11 major Indian languages to ensure that language and geography barriers are minimized

Since the portal caters to less-educated youth from villages of India, trained call-centre employees, who are empathetic to the cause of disability help youth with no access to smart phones to on-board through just a mobile phone and support them throughout the job placement process and help them embark their journey into inclusive employment.

Companies too benefit majorly from the hand-held approach to hiring Persons with Disabilities:

• Indicate on the portal in multiple ways about their footprint in the disability space, which enables our team to connect with them and enrol them into the cause of disability hiring
• For companies that require the hand-holding support of Youth4Jobs, the portal facilitates the request to become a part of the larger network where individual company needs for disability hiring are carefully evaluated and a very sensitive connect between the candidate and the employer are nurtured by the trained team of Youth4Jobs

Other external partners like NGO’s and Government Organisations for the first time, have a space to share the details of Persons with Disabilities and expose them to a large network of companies and jobs. They also get to understand and interact with a team of professionals who are experts at placement of Persons with Disabilities. This fits into the larger vision of the organization, “Every youth with disability will be poverty free, Independent & Confident.”

With disability and the disabled at the heart of the solution, SwarajAbility is set to make a mark in the disability space around the world by bringing together all the relevant stakeholders onto a platform. For all such stakeholders joining this community of change is now just a click away for registration.

According to the Census 2011, there are 2.68 Crore Persons with Disabilities (PwDs) in India constituting 2.21% of the total population. PwDs excessively suffer from poor health and poverty. Our theory of change for addressing the issue of poverty among persons with disabilities (PwDs) revolves around the provision of accessible and AI-driven employment opportunities exclusively for PwDs through the Swarajability job portal. The Swarajability job portal serves as a platform specifically designed to cater to the needs of PwDs, offering accessible features and leveraging AI technology to match them with suitable employment opportunities. Through this platform, PwDs can find jobs that accommodate their unique skills and abilities, thereby enabling them to secure meaningful employment. As PwDs gain access to employment through the SwarajAbility job portal, several key outcomes are anticipated. 

Firstly, there will be a tangible increase in their financial power. By earning a steady income, PwDs will have greater financial stability, allowing them to meet their basic needs and alleviate the economic strain often associated with poverty. In addition to financial empowerment, employment opportunities provided by the portal are expected to foster a sense of confidence and independence among PwDs. This increased confidence can positively impact various aspects of their lives, including their relationships, social interactions, and overall well-being. Furthermore, gaining independence through employment can empower PwDs to make decisions about their own lives and pursue their goals and aspirations with greater autonomy.

Immediate outputs include the number of youth and employers registered on the portal, the number of job roles updated by employers, vacancies listed, job applications submitted, and job placements secured. Short-term outcomes include families moving out of poverty, as PwDs gain financial independence. Intermediate outcomes are anticipated to involve broader societal changes. With increased participation of persons with disabilities in the job market, there could be an expansion of the labour pool for employers, leading to enhanced social skills and greater mainstreaming of persons with disabilities in society. Long-term outcomes are envisioned to bring about significant shifts in the employment landscape for persons with disabilities. This includes a notable increase in the number of persons with disabilities gaining employment, thereby leading to improved sustainable livelihoods and reduced unemployment rates within this target group. Ultimately, these outcomes are expected to contribute to enhanced opportunities for future success among persons with disabilities.

Our theory of change is supported by existing research demonstrating the positive impact of the Swarajability job portal on employment outcomes for persons with disabilities. Additionally, we draw upon case studies and collect data through interviews, surveys, and assessments to track progress and measure effectiveness. Throughout the implementation process, we remain flexible and receptive to feedback, continuously learning and refining our approach to ensure the relevance and effectiveness of the job portal. By following this logical framework, we anticipate that our solution will have a meaningful impact on enhancing sustainable livelihood opportunities for PwDs, thereby leading to positive outcomes for individuals, families, and society as a whole.

Swarajability aligns closely with the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) 1, 5, 8, and 10, and its impact goals are well-matched with these objectives.

SDG 1: No Poverty - Swarajability aims to reduce poverty among PwDs by providing them with accessible and AI-driven employment opportunities. By facilitating job placements for PwDs, Swarajability contributes to lifting them and their families out of poverty. Impact goals such as reducing the poverty rate among PwDs families and raising the average annual income of families align directly with SDG 1.

SDG 5: Gender equality - 69% of India’s’ disability population lives in rural areas where there is a stigma attached to disability, especially for girls and young women with disabilities. They are seen as a burden and dependents in the social economy. Through our pioneering global initiative WE DO we are committed to forging pathways and unlocking opportunities for women entrepreneurs with disabilities. Eventually we pave way for them into mainstream employment through SwarajAbility

SDG 8: Decent Work and Economic Growth The core mission of Swarajability is to promote decent work and economic growth among PwDs. By connecting them with suitable employment opportunities, the platform supports the goal of decent work for all.

SDG 10: Reduced Inequalities Swarajability contributes to reducing inequalities by providing equal access to employment opportunities for PwDs. The platform ensures that PwDs have a fair chance to participate in the workforce, thereby promoting inclusivity and reducing disparities

Impact Goals:

Impacting 1 million Persons with Disabilities (PwDs) by providing employment opportunities, with a target of 50% of them securing employment by 5 years.

Reducing the poverty rate among 100,000 PwDs families.

Raising the average annual income of families by 200%.

Measuring Progress:

Number of PwDs registered on the Swarajability job portal: Tracking the total number of PwDs who have registered on the portal provides insights into the reach and engagement of the platform.

Percentage of registered PwDs securing employment: Monitoring the percentage of registered PwDs who successfully secure employment through the portal within a specified timeframe helps gauge the effectiveness of the platform in facilitating job placements.

Poverty rate among PwDs families: Assessing the poverty rate among families of registered PwDs through surveys allows for tracking changes over time.

Average annual income of families: Calculating the average annual income of families of registered PwDs before and after utilizing the Swarajability job portal helps measure the impact on household income levels.

Surveys and feedback: Conducting surveys and obtaining feedback from registered PwDs and their families allows for qualitative insights into their experiences with the portal, including changes in employment status and financial well-being.

Longitudinal studies: Longitudinal studies tracking the progress of registered PwDs over time provide comprehensive data on employment outcomes, poverty rates, and income levels, enabling a deeper understanding of the impact of the solution.

Swarajability's alignment with SDGs 1, 8, and 10 underscores its commitment to addressing poverty, promoting decent work and economic growth, and reducing inequalities among persons with disabilities, thereby contributing to broader sustainable development objectives.

SwarajAbility is a web-based application, which is fully tested for responsiveness on different digital devices such as mobiles and tabs too. Since accessibility is the core of our solution, right from the beginning we ensured that the WCAG Guidelines 2.1 have been implemented at every stage of development. We have also been certified as being AA compliant by the ITQCR, which is an Empanelled Testing Laboratory by Standardization Testing and Quality Certification (STQC) Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology Government of India.

It is using a PEAN web application stack consisting of PostgreSQL, Express framework, NodeJS, and AngularJS as a frontend framework. The Production Environment is deployed on AWS Cloud. The Angular application is hosted on a S3 bucket, which is set as the Origin Access Control for the CloudFront. The API server and the Database are hosted on a EC2 machine using Docker containers. All the above-mentioned services are deployed inside Virtual Private Cloud. The endpoints are routed to the CloudFront via Route53. For CI/CD, GitHub actions and self-hosted Runners are being used. For the backend PostgreSQL is a powerful, open source object-relational database system with over 35 years of active development that has earned it a strong reputation for reliability, feature robustness, and performance. On the whole the biggest advantages of using a PEAN Stack are that it is highly scalable, highly extensible, provides event-driven asynchronous features which makes it lightweight and there is no buffering hence is fast.

SMS and Email are two technologies we use in order to interact with the different stakeholders of the portal.

The portal is also available in 11 Indian languages, continuing to be available to the grassroot of India. For the multi-language feature we chose to do an API Integration with Bhashini, a Govt. of India initiative to break language barriers using AI, NLP.

Full time staff - 8

Software Development Vendor Team – 12

Besides pro-bono support is offered by E&Y and Deloitte.

Conceptualization – March 2022 – June 2022

Initial Development of Pilot Solution – June 2022 – October 2022

Pilot phase October 2022 – February 2023

Production environment – June 2023 - present

Youth4Jobs is committed to promoting gender equity, diversity, and inclusion in its work. These principles are embedded in our conceptual framework and practices in the following ways:

*Gender gets mainstreamed seamlessly in Y4J as 40% of our employees are young women and 4 of 6 senior leaders, including the Founder are women

*Inclusive Program Design: Youth4Jobs programs focuses on inclusivity, ensuring that individuals of all genders and diverse backgrounds have equal access to our programs and services. Y4J actively strives to create a safe and inclusive environment that addresses the specific needs and challenges faced by participants from different gender identities, and socio-economic backgrounds.

Equal Opportunities: Youth4Jobs provides equal opportunities for individuals of all genders to access our training programs, skill development initiatives, and employment support. We prioritize meritocracy and ensure that selection processes are fair and unbiased, offering an equal chance for everyone to benefit from our services. As a result:

35% of the youth trained are women.

83% of women participants in our program are from below poverty line.

Partnerships for Job Placement: Partnership with companies like Foxconn, Schneider Electric and mainstream in a pioneering manner women with disabilities since they work only with females.

Highlighting the intersections issues in all gender conferences to ensure policy makers like Women and Child department, researchers, NGOs and think tanks become aware of women with disability issues.

The 256-member team is led by senior leaders who have 20 years managerial experience in different sectors ranging from content management to banking and social sector. We have recruited 75 persons with disabilities at the grassroot level and 1 visually impaired person at the managerial level. The team has a mixture of grassroot workers and management experts who work together with the vision of improving lives of the disabled.

A snapshot of team strengths which has helped us to deepen our work and scale in eleven years:

Market linked skilling: The core team has a decade long experience in market linked skilling of underprivileged youth with disabilities.

➢ Ability to prototype and scale: The core team has the ability to understand the community and build a replicable and scalable template

➢ Passion: The team is knitted by a passion for the work as they see the transformation hands-on every day and get showered with blessings from all stakeholders.

➢ Companies: In the not- for- profit world, many do not understand markets and work in silos. Y4J is unique as its core team has corporate experience and the capacity of the rest of team is built to understand markets as placement of PwDs is the ultimate goal for the work

➢ Customized knowledge of geographies: Local teams have the capacity to customize the trainings to local needs, wherever necessary

*Ability to use data for program improvement.

*Understanding the use of technology for high social impact.

Our business model is a solution to take an unemployed youth with disability from unemployment to his first organized sector job in a sustainable manner. Youth4Jobs has evolved this process after years of refinement keeping one eye on the community and one eye on markets. It includes the following:

1. Customized programs for job-linked training of less educated (Project Parivartan), educated youth with disabilities (College Connect) and coaching for government jobs for the visually impaired youth (Project Manzil). Trainings give 21st century generic skills like English, digital literacy, soft skills and life skills and sector specific skills. All trainings are outcome oriented and do the last mile connect to quality jobs.

2. Each training program is synced to an advocacy or changing mindsets program. For e.g., Parivartan, which skills less educated youth, is linked to a household level Village Advocacy program. College Connect is linked to Smart Inclusion Centers which run workshops for educators to make them disability confident and universities/colleges inclusive. In the Grassroot Academy, sensitization is done in local language with local alumni involvement.

3. Partnering with government, central and state, NGOs and community based organisations, local MLAs, Asha workers is an integral part of the solution

Simultaneously, investments in support services for companies, technology and knowledge help mainstream disability hiring

Corporate Connect: Inbuilt in the model is customized support corporates in equipping them with the right knowledge and infrastructure to address the challenge of both hiring and giving youth with disability a career. These services include sensitization workshops, job role matrix, accessibility audit, sign language workshops, safety compliances, making HR policies inclusive etc. to ensure the hired youth can be productive and there is a sensitive eco-sphere in companies. 

Youth4Jobs has a multi-level strategy with a bold ambitious aspiration of high socio-economic impact in the disability space.

1. Grassroot Academy to adopt an immersion approach at the village level: Alumni with disabilities, Divyang Mitr, lead this transformation, and investment will be made in their leadership skills. Digital tools and literacy are embedded in the program for improving livelihoods. Piloted in 24 districts in 4 states, the results have been amazing.

2. System Changer with SwarajAbility & Zero India conference platforms:

a. SwarajAbility has brought different stakeholders in the disability space together to work with Youth4Jobs. In the last few months since its launch, multilateral funders like ILO; companies ranging from Capgemini to Infosys have come on board with NGOs like Sight Savers. 

b. Zero India project The second initiative strengthening this platform with national and global networks is bringing the Zero global conference to India. Zero global Conference is the world’s largest conference in disability which is held at the UN headquarters in Vienna from 2014. It has a network of over 6000 disability experts, parliamentarians, company and technology leaders from 180 countries. The Board of Zero con has signed a 10 year MOU with Y4J for holding the Zero India conference. The curtain raiser happened in Feb.2023 at the UN headquarters in Vienna.

Youth4Jobs is a hybrid organisation. The main source of revenue currently is grants received from company CSR (corporate social responsibility) grants. We charge companies for support services we give to ensure PwDs get mainstreamed in the labour markets. These are sensitisation workshops for Board members; job carving and job mapping; accessibility audit; technology synchronization.

As market needs evolve, these services are being extended. For example, the corporate team does fun filled experiential sensitisation workshops for leadership teams over cocktails/dinner for a range of disabilities. Likewise presentations are given on how assistive devices can increase productivity of the hired youth and improve learning outcomes.

Companies also pay a recruitment fee for hiring of educated youth with disabilities. For customised trainings and hiring for entry level jobs, there is a charge. Projections for the next 3 years are 10%; 15% and 30% growth in revenue.

Funds and grants will continue to remain our larger source of revenue for the next three years. In India, companies are mandated to give 2% of their profits to charities of choice. Some companies have chosen to work with marginalised like the disabled. Average income growth is 34% .

*Companies opt to give grants to Y4J as there are very few organisations in India which work pan India, at scale, as a System Changer with planned activity in the entire value chain of taking an unemployed/underemployed youth with disability to an organised sector quality job. This includes advocacy with companies, colleges and villages; customised market linked trainings for different disabilities and different education levels; conducting studies and working with governments to influence policy. As a result of this, our first year funder like Axis Bank Foundation has remained and grown with us in the last twelve years.

Funders trust in us is based on our consistent performance in the challenging area of disability and linking them to labour markets. In Covid times, when most organisation closed their skilling operations or only trained without job linkages, we increased our geographical spread and impact through grassroot online trainings and new industry sector linkages like e-commerce. This has won the respect of funders.

*Sustainability also comes from the fact that with ESG, investors are looking beyond business when they evaluate companies. In the social space, the disability issue is getting highlighted. Covid with the rise of mental health and other disabilities is bringing a spotlight on this space. From a country perspective, Disability cuts across all SDG goals. In India, skilling youth linked to jobs is an important program of the government because of the demographic dividend. The Hon’ble Prime Minster spoke about our work in his popular program recently.

Though twelve years young, the pioneering unrestricted funder, Mckinsey Scott has chosen to fund us, after rigorous review by an independent authority. Our % of unrestricted funds to total funds is now at 55%.

With a clear strategy in place, high impact, scale and transparency in all operations, we are confident of being financially sustainable for the next ten years.