Bangalore: Head Held High Foundation (HHH), a Bangalore-based NGO, has completed 10 years of work in empowering and enabling livelihoods for rural youth and communities. To celebrate this milestone and to lay the foundation for yet another decade of impact, HHH has launched a year-long campaign titled ‘The Power of Possibilities’. The goal is to facilitate knowledge sharing through this initiative and drive greater collaboration.
The campaign was officially launched on November 30, 2021, with a panel discussion on ‘Unleashing Youth Potential at the intersection of Samaaj, Bazaar and Sarkaar’. Speakers included Arun Maira, former member of Planning Commission of India, Reema Nanavati, Director, Self Employed Women’s Association SEWA, Dr R Balu, Founder, Vivekananda Youth Movement; Member – HR Capacity Building Commission, Govt of India, and Madan Padaki, Co-founder and Managing Trustee, Head Held High Foundation.
Panellists painted an inspirational vision with the following takeaways for HHH and others in the change-making ecosystem:
- There is a wave of aspirations among young people and in communities. As an ecosystem, we all need to work together to catalyse this potential in order to unlock the possibilities.
- Everyone is entitled to a life of dignity with decent work and living conditions. We need to identify ways to contribute to this.
- We need to recognize that communities have agency and enterprise. We need to be with them and wait for them to give you permission to help them.
- Encourage the youth to embrace a mindset of abundance, rather than a deficit outlook.
- Instil sustainable beliefs and approaches in budding entrepreneurs to create self-reliant economic communities.
The audience of 200+ attendees for the event included partners, volunteers, and youth of the HHH programmes. Through this year-long campaign, HHH aims to share ideas and feature regular discussions, insights, and stories to help develop an ecosystem playbook, in the words of Pankaj Singh Thakur, CEO of Head Held High.
So far, HHH Foundation has impacted more than 200,000 rural youth in 100+ districts across India through its poverty alleviation initiatives. The primary ones include:
- Make India Capable (MIC)
- A 6-month transformative programme that equips youth with skills to pursue their aspirations.
- Antarprerna (Rural Entrepreneurship)
- Initiatives to build an entrepreneurial mindset and support rural youth and women in their quest for self-employment
- Future Ready Guidance
- Career guidance and counselling and other career resources for youth who have limited access to these
The NGO also plans to launch a new initiative called ‘One for One’ to support 10,000 rural women entrepreneurs. This unique programme will involve an individual donor working with a rural woman in order to guide and support the latter in her bid to start a micro-enterprise in her community.