On the occasion of World Youth Skill Day, SKF India, announces the expansion of the YES (Youth Empowerment at SKF) program, that focuses on training, skill development and employability of youth, across Gandhinagar in Ahmedabad, Sakrali in Kolkata & Pali at Jodhpur. The YES program reaches out to the underprivileged youth of the country and equips them with industry-relevant skills, thereby improving their employability or helping them become micro-entrepreneurs. These centers will contribute to the overall program goal of skilling 10000 youth for the automotive sector by 2025.
As part of the expansion, SKF will be partnering with implementing partner – Ambuja Cement Foundation to set up dedicated YES centres. To provide the best of theoretical and practical knowledge, the centres will have built-in classrooms and training labs equipped with various models and cut sections of two-wheelers and four-wheelers. The course will have ASDC certification and includes vocational trainings on automobile technician, personality development, management skills and entrepreneurship skills.
Speaking on the occasion, Manish Bhatnagar, MD, SKF India Ltd. said, “To fulfil India’s growth ambitions, we need to focus on skilling the youths of the country. Our aim with the YES program is to equip the youth of our country with both vocational and behavioural skills that will assist them professionally, raise the scope of their employability and help reach their aspirational goals. As a socially responsible corporate, we want all our programs to make a meaningful difference and we will continue to undertake similar initiatives in the future.”
Ravi Nayse, Head of Skilling, Ambuja Cement Foundation said, “We highly appreciate SKF for having selected us as an implementation partner for the YES program. With their knowledge of the automobile industry and our experience in skill training we shall create skilled professionals for the sector and also enable them to secure a better standard of living.”
Launched in 2015, YES program aims at empowering the youth with the know-how of modern automobile maintenance and servicing skills to help them gain employment at various automotive OEMs), dealer service network and workshops or become entrepreneurs by setting up their own vehicle service stations. With a target to reach 10,000 beneficiaries by 2025, these short-term programs are conducted across our YES centers to train the youth to work at various automotive OEMs, dealer service network and workshops. Till date, YES has impacted over 4000 students by 70% providing job placement in automobile sectors. Along with technical course YES also focuses on soft skills and basic entrepreneur skills. The courses are designed for 2-wheeler technician and 4-wheeler technician training, service advisor, sales executive, customer care executive & EV course.
About SKF India
SKF’s mission is to be the undisputed leader in the bearing business. We do this by offering solutions that reduce friction and CO2 emissions, whilst at the same time increasing machine uptime and performance. Our products and services around the rotating shaft, include bearings, seals, lubrication management, artificial intelligence, and wireless condition monitoring. SKF is represented in more than 130 countries and has around 17,000 distributor locations worldwide. Annual sales in 2021 were SEK 81 732 million and the number of employees was 42,602. www.skf.com/in
About Ambuja Cement Foundation
Ambuja Cement Foundation (ACF) is a section 8 company established in 1993 as the CSR arm of Ambuja Cements Limited. With a team of over 1400+ development professionals, ACF has been working with and for the rural communities in 53 districts across 12 states, with a population outreach of 2.8 million. It works with a vision to create prosperous societies and mainly focuses on water and livelihoods (agri and skill-based). However, the focus has been to achieve a holistic development that can’t be achieved without good health, gender equality, and quality education. Therefore, ACF has chosen six thrust areas to work on – water, agricultural livelihoods, skill-based livelihoods, health, education, and women empowerment. The comprehensive program portfolio of ACF is a result of a systematic assessment conducted across sites over a period of time which takes care of the varied needs of the communities. With the mission to ‘Energise, Involve and Enable’ communities to realize their potential, ACF engages with critical stakeholders throughout its program lifecycle. The Foundation considers neighboring communities as one of the most important stakeholders and partners for its programs. Whether it needs assessment, implementation, or monitoring and review; the community is an integral part of all programs run by ACF.