WKC’s ‘GRADES’ to Equip Students’s Job Prospects
Daijiworld Media Network - Manalgore (FR)
Mangalore, Oct 20: With a view to make the Konkani community a strong cohesive, globally competitive and prosperous community, World Konkani Centre (WKC) has been carrying out various plans and programmes in the last few years. It has been working untiringly to implement these programmes aimed at making the Konkani community strong and self-reliant. One such programme is The Vishwa Konkani Student Scholarship Fund (VKSSF) of providing ‘merit cum means scholarship’ worth crores of rupees to deserving Konkani students.
While this scheme has come as a blessing for thousands of Konkani students WKC is determined to extend further help to the student in the form of Graduates Employability Skills Development Programme (GRADES). This programme is implemented by KSHMATHA, a training wing created by WKC to help students to fine tune their talents. GRADES aims at providing skill training to the students so that they are ready for competitive career the moment they come out of the portals of the educational institutions. This is keeping in tune with Vision TVM 2030, the brainchild of T V Mohandas Pai, who has been working closely with WKC with a holistic approach for the overall development of the community. “Vision TVM 2030” is the brainchild of T V Mohandas Pai who has given a road map for the next 20 years for the community to make a giant leap forward in every aspect of life.
Pradeep G Pai, Secretary VKSSF Convenor – Finance Committee opines that it is “Vision 2030” that drives them to chalk out various activities for the Konkani speaking communities. “We want to reach out to the Konkani youth from every community so that by 2030 our community will be self reliant and globally competitive”, he declared.
3 Layer Approach
GRADES is a three layer programme and as a pilot project about 136 Graduates from Kharvi Community have completed the 1st layer of the programme through a orientation conducted at Kundapur under the aegis of WKC in association with Akhil Karnataka Konkan Kharvi Mahajan Sabha. Graduates from Kharvi community from all over coastal belt were chosen for the training programme. 2nd layer of the programme was done in May-June this year by dividing the students in 3 camps with 4 days of training on Personal Effectiveness. The Students were accommodated in the newly built T.V.Raman Pai and T.Vimala V. Pai hostel at World Konkani Centre.
President of Akhil Karnataka Konkan Kharvi Mahajan Sabha K B Kharvi, who was instrumental in identifying Kharvi students for the programme, says “the programme has given a boost to the self confidence of the Kharvi youth. A cream of participants has been able to find better jobs than the one they held before they attended this programme. I personally believe that a series of programmes would do wonders for the Kharvi boys and also for their families in the days to come”.
Now a third layer of GRADES is scheduled to be held in coming November where the students will be regrouped as per their skill levels and interests, to train them in domain specific areas such as, Office Management, Sales and Marketing etc., so that they have the cutting edge in the job market. As most of the beneficiaries of this programme have been working candidates they have an opportunity to improve their chances of grabbing a better job due to the GRADES training.
KSHAMATHA team at Work
The Programme will be integrated with the Vishwa Konkani Scholarship Programme, benefiting Degree students from Kharvi and Kudubi Communities this year and will be expanded to all beneficiaries from next year onwards.
KSHAMATHA is the training wing of WKC comprising a dedicated team of professionals created with the singular objective of equipping the students with soft skills. This training wing of WKC acts as a Human Resources Training Academy and has built a strong team of Human Resource Trainers from the Konkani community. CA Giridhar Kamath and CA M. Narasimhdasa Pai are the main force behind the success of KSHAMATHA which has imparted about 1,500 man-days of trainings within a year of its founding. The cost of trainings is funded by Vishwa Konkani Student Scholarship Fund, headed by Ramdas Kamath U, as president and Pradeep G. Pai as secretary.
KSHAMATA has also been organizing a series of training programmes for Scholars of Engineering and MBBS Scholarship Programmes of Vishwa Konkani Student Scholarship Fund, such as Beneficiary Orientation and Training Programme (BOTP) for developing soft skills, Beneficiary Language Skills Improvement Programme (BLSIP) for developing language skills and General Management and Communication Skills Programme (GMCS).
Chartered Accountant and pro-bono member of the network of Human Resource Trainers states “it is really a matter of satisfaction that we are able to reach out to the youth of the community who deserve this kind of training. Our trainers and coordinators are able to tune up to the expectations of these aspirants, so that we are able to come out with suitable modules to suit every sections of the Konkani student community. I am privileged to be associated with KSHAMATHA and with WKC.
During these camps Konkani Speaking students, irrespective of caste, religion and Region stay together and participate in the trainings. The evening sessions are filled with lot of fun and group activities, aimed at forging a bond among these students. These activities also enable the students to learn about the diverse cultural and linguistic flavors within the Konkani Speaking Community so that they are able connect with each other better.
World Konkani Centre founded by the visionary Basti Vaman Shenoy, has been rapidly evolving with myriad activities, now supported by the VISION TVM of T.V.Mohandas Pai.