Launch Leap Skills' Entrepreneurship Program!

There are currently 15 million young people joining the workforce while the economy is able to cater to only 5.5 million jobseekers each year. This highly inefficient job market scenario highlights the need for job creation across the length and breadth of the country. There are many people in India who have an entrepreneurial mindset, however, their aspirations are limited by their socio-economic backgrounds and lack of awareness.

From our two pilots-- with 22 young women from a low-income, fashion college and 24 students from an architecture training institute, we have seen the results a program like this can have.

One example is our student, Bilkish Khan, who during a workshop raised the question – “Why is it that there are no easy-to-wear fashionable clothes available in our local markets for differently-abled people?” These questions marked the beginning of “Handicare”, Bilkish’s business idea of using her passion for the fashion design to create a clothing brand for differently-abled people. When Bilkish first entered training she was shy to share her ideas with the rest of the class. During pitch day, Bilkish shared her idea with confidence and won this competition and prize money to launch her enterprise. With the right access to opportunities Bilkish and other young women like can acquire the skills and develop the grit they need to overcome societal limitations and economic hurdles to dream big.