As an important step to address the urgency of the need of a healthier and stronger private sector, YouthNet in partnership with Dept.of Youth Resources and Sports, Government of Nagaland has initiated a 5-year campaign called Impact 5000 by 18 which aims to positively impact 5000 young people involved in the private sector by the year 2018.
The campaign will strive to foster a healthy private sector and thereby facilitate socio-economic prosperity of the youth and the state. This campaign will be implemented through the YouthNet Centre for Entrepreneurship and Employment. Those impacted would have enhanced their business skills, employability skills and developed entrepreneurial mindsets.
Goals
The campaign is guided by the Government of Nagaland’s vision to create and build socio-economic prosperity for the youth and an entrepreneurial culture in the State.
Objectives
This campaign’s objectives are:
1. To help equip existing young entrepreneurs with business skills and knowledge.
2. To enhance the employability skills of the workforce who can be employed in the private sector.
3. To shape entrepreneurial mindsets among young people and educate them about the importance of a vibrant private sector for socio-economic prosperity.
4. To identify and mould role models who can become not only key job creators in the economy but who can create value with available resources.
5. To impact 5000 young lives involved in the private sector by the year 2018.
To know more about the campaign please visit www.impact5000by18.com
YouthNet ‘Impact 5000 by 18’ receives special mention award
YouthNet’s Impact 5000 by 18 received the special mention award under the ‘social innovations in youth development.’ The awards celebrate and recognize best practices and innovation in social and community development in North-East India.
The ‘Impact 5000 by 18’ campaign launched in 2013 is a partnership between YouthNet and the Government of Nagaland. It aims to reach and impact 5000 local youths by 2018 with the goal of building a healthier and stronger private sector in Nagaland by focusing on creating sustainable income opportunities through nurturing and promoting a healthy entrepreneurial ecosystem.
The campaign has, over the last two years undertaken various projects including carpentry and steel fabrication workshops, handloom and bamboo basket weaving skill-building programs, local piggery shop, CAT scholarship, Dial Nagaland, The Entrepreneur, etc.
The impact campaign is guided by the vision to create and build socio-economic prosperity for the youth and an entrepreneurial culture in the state.
The Entrepreneur
‘The Entrepreneur’, is one of the flagship programs of the Impact 5000 by 18 campaign. The objective of the program is to look at entrepreneurship as a very important tool in building the economy through these entrepreneurs. New entrepreneurs and starts ups need guidance as they prepare to sustain and grow. Over the years, there’s has been an increase in Naga youths getting into business however many local entrepreneurs in Nagaland do not have a business degree so when they get into business, basic skills like Accounting, Human Resource, Operations, forecasting can be tough and challenging. They are also faced with many doubts and challenges and often move by lurching from one problem to another.
The program is designed to impart entrepreneurial, business and leadership skills to emerging local entrepreneurs who have the ambition and potential to create economic and social value through their ventures. The program aims to encourage and assist the selected entrepreneurs.
The goal of the Entrepreneur program is to pick 20 top emerging start ups across the state. This selection is done after massive advertisement through all means of media, a filtering process and one to one interaction with each of the participants. Some of them are also handpicked based on their potential during the district wise entrepreneurship program. 5 were picked from a total of 236 entrepreneurs. The other 15 candidates were chosen by the team through a stringent selection process.
Once the top 20 participants are selected, The program looks to mentor and harness their skills. Based over 4 weeks, this tightly integrated format enables entrepreneurs to prepare for the challenges and engage in personal interactive sessions. A workshop with a combination of class-room lectures, case study discussions, group activities and individual project development is followed up with a competition amongst themselves. In the process of this workshop, entrepreneurs build a multidisciplinary perspective that enables them to analyze key value drivers, build network amongst the participants and capitalize on possible opportunities.
The course consists of modules each concentrating on different aspects of business growth. The modules are designed especially taking into account the local business environment and the businesses of the participants. The emphasis throughout is on learning that is practically applicable in participants’ businesses. Besides this each of the participants develop their ‘business growth plan’, which is a plan that outlines the strategy and the requisite operational activities they intend to implement in order to expand their business in the coming years. The participants’ ‘business growth plan’ is evaluated and the winner gets a prize sponsored by Jupiter Capital..
Rajeev Chandrasekhar, (M.P Karnataka) and also an Entrepreneur himself is the Chief mentor for this program. The finale was held in Kohima, Nagaland where Rajeev flew in his own private plane for the occasion. The participants pitched in their business ideas to him. Nawang Inoto Khulu, who co-owns designstach won the first edition of the Entrepreneur and was awarded a cash prize of Rs. 5, 00,000 for his business idea.. Nebuzz.com Nebuzz.com is showcasing and sharing stories of the the North East through an online platform across diverse fields.
The following year was ‘The Entrepreneur-2’ where another set of 20 Start ups and new businesses underwent a similar boot camp. The winner of season 2 was Ann Patton who is the owner of ‘ Origins Spa’ based in Dimapur. Ann Patton invested the prize money for her skill up gradation. She now frequently travels to the cities to train people on healthier lifestyles. So far, 38 young Entrepreneurs have been a part of this program.
Dial Nagaland
With the objective of promoting and empowering local skilled workers, YouthNet in partnership with the Department of Labour and Employment launched “Dial Nagaland” on July 21, 2015. Dial Nagaland is a classified directory of local skilled workers which the public can gain access to, by calling a number (70850-50006) and requesting for the services of skilled workers such as plumbers, carpenters, electricians, masons, painters etc.
The operator then connects the potential customers/clients to the available skilled workers by giving them the contact information of the available skilled workers. The customers can then get in touch directly with the skilled workers for negotiations and avail their services.
Dial Nagaland was conceptualized and created to address the issue of inaccessibility of local skilled workers including the innumerable skilled people from ITIs across the state, and to help the local skilled workers in their marketing by creating linkages and publicity. Dial Nagaland also aims to improve the level of professionalism of the skilled workers by imparting training as and when necessary, and to organize the local skilled labour industry in the state. The services will be first piloted in Kohima and Dimapur before going to other districts. Dial Nagaland currently has close to 80 skilled workers registered across different sectors and more are welcome to register for free at the YouthNet offices in Kohima and Dimapur.
It may be noted that Dial Nagaland is being undertaken through YouthNet’s Impact 5000 by 18 – a five-year program on entrepreneurship, skill development and employment.
With the objective of promoting and empowering local skilled workers, YouthNet in partnership with the Department of Labour and Employment launched “Dial Nagaland” on July 21, 2015. Dial Nagaland is a classified directory of local skilled workers which the public can gain access to, by calling a number (70850-50006) and requesting for the services of skilled workers such as plumbers, carpenters, electricians, masons, painters etc.
The operator then connects the potential customers/clients to the available skilled workers by giving them the contact information of the available skilled workers. The customers can then get in touch directly with the skilled workers for negotiations and avail their services.
Dial Nagaland was conceptualized and created to address the issue of inaccessibility of local skilled workers including the innumerable skilled people from ITIs across the state, and to help the local skilled workers in their marketing by creating linkages and publicity. Dial Nagaland also aims to improve the level of professionalism of the skilled workers by imparting training as and when necessary, and to organize the local skilled labour industry in the state. The services will be first piloted in Kohima and Dimapur before going to other districts. Dial Nagaland currently has close to 80 skilled workers registered across different sectors and more are welcome to register for free at the YouthNet offices in Kohima and Dimapur.
It may be noted that Dial Nagaland is being undertaken through YouthNet’s Impact 5000 by 18 – a five-year program on entrepreneurship, skill development and employment.
Pork Chop
The import of pork from outside the state is a growing concern for many reasons. From their hygiene of these pigs to taking away livelihood of many local piggery farmes. This was a concern and hence Pork Chop was conceptualized. This was also to create inclusive growth for the economy and employment for educated unemployed youths in the state, Pork Chop was launched in Kohima in November 2014. .The shop is in partnership with a local entrepreneur Kito Chophi . Commissioner secretary Menukhol John, inaugurated the Pork retail store in Nov 2014. Everything about Pork chop is local. The shop buys all their meat from local farmers and the retail store also uses Electronic weighing machine which would justify the correct amount of quantity of meat as there has been a regular complaint of consumers on faulty weighing in Kohima. Pork Chop currently employs 11 people and since the launch of Pork Chop, the last year has seen more than 10 local pork shops open across Dimapur and Kohima. This is a very encouraging trend.
YouthNet and IEF ‘ Master Class’
While the wave of entrepreneurship is new in Nagaland, there is also a group of people who have in the business sector for sometime. The Master Class is aims to bring together some of the seasoned urban educated emerging entrepreneurs business. This is in partnership with The Indian Entrepreneurship Foundation. The Master class has been conceptualized to address the needs of urban entrepreneurs and organization leaders who have the potential to take their enterprises or organizations to new heights thereby positively affecting the economy and society as a whole. YouthNet and IEF also envision that these entrepreneurs eventually provide the higher value chain for rural entrepreneurs and thus create employment opportunities for the youth of the state. The program has been designed for two years where business owners and organization leaders registered meet once every few months to share ideas and learn from each other and also to assess the growth of their enterprise/organization as an outcome of their learning. There are 16 Entrepreneurs in the master class and together they have more than 500 employees.
Bhairavi Jani, the founder of IEF, facilitated the first session and is followed by other business leaders as resource persons. Bhairavi has been listed as one of the 30 most Powerful Women in India by the India Today publication in 2010, Bhairavi is the Executive Director at SCA Group of Companies and has served as Executive Director for India@75, an initiative for realizing the dream of an inclusive, sustainable and developed India by the year 2022. In addition to being an India Leadership Initiative Fellow, she is a member of the National Committee of India@75 Foundation Trust as well as the Aspen Global Leadership Network, a Director of the Meghalaya Institute of Entrepreneurship, and a founding member and former National Chairman of Young Indians, CII.
Ntuma Raja Mircha Project
Agriculture still remains the biggest livelihood opportunity and taking advantage of ever growing popular Raja Chilli YouthNet partnered with Zatara Pvt. Ltd, a local packaging and marketing company ( Amonar Tea ) and Ntuma Young Farmers Association from Ntuma Village, Peren District, Nagaland, to focus on the Raja Mircha.
The concept behind this idea is to facilitate the creation of market linkages in the agriculture sector and wok with the farmers to build market linkages which can create a demand for our local products, this Ntuma project is to provide a sustainable liveihlood oppurnity for the people of Ntuma Village, Peren District, Nagaland. A Hydrogen has also be installed to provide electricity in the farming areas. This provides electricity to 30 families in the locality. The first shipment of Raja Chilies was also done last year. There has also been skill-building programs for the farmers in partnership with ICAR.
Carpentry
YouthNet tied up with Zynorique Initiatives, one of the leading architecture firms in Nagaland to conduct a series of workshops aimed to train existing craftsmen on modern techniques of woodworking. Professionals and experts from Zynorique ensured that these craftsmen were monitored and mentored during the training.
After the training, a database of certified craftsmen has been created. Performing units were also chosen to train youth who can then be employed in these units. The objectives was to identify performing carpentry units and assist in upscaling them in order to generate employment
Bamboo basket-weaving
YouthNet tied up with NBDA (Nagaland Bamboo Development Agency) to train several people from the rural areas of Peren district to weave bamboo baskets which could be commercially sourced. The main objectives again are to create an alternative source of income for people. The first order was from a local tea company – Amonar Tea a local tea producer where they made an order for 500 Tea bamboo containers.
District wise Entrepreneurship workshop
For many local business people in other districts outside Kohima and Dimapur, many of them have not had the opportunity to attend business workshops and seminars.
The objectives of this program is to encourage and uplift these local entrepreneurs and also support them financially to be more feasible and maintain their businesses in a more professional manner. The YouthNet team travelled as resource people conducting workshops across all districts in Nagaland covering all 11 districts in Nagaland encouraging the local entrepreneurs in developing their skills The team from YouthNet were Abokali Jhimomi( M.B.A Liverpool), Medo Putsure (M.B.A U.K), And Tomtsa Chishi ( M.B. A – IIM), Thomas Rolnu ( M.B.A ) and Lezo Putsure (M.B.A London)
The workshop started in July 2014 and ended in October 2014. YouthNet has been promoting these entrepreneurs through its various channels and sources available. After 236 entrepreneurs were trained, the top 20 were asked to attend the Final workshop’ The Entrepreneur’ In Kohima. For many of the participants from outside districts they were grateful that the Govt had initiated a program for them.