Life Project for Youth (LP4Y), an NGO created in 2009 for the reinsertion of underprivileged youth, has been supported by Veolia Foundation since 2015.
LP4Y mission is to assist underprivileged youth aged 17 to 24 years old, living in extreme poverty and victims of exclusion: ex-prisoners, abuse sufferers, disabled, street youth, etc.
The NGO builds structures to welcome these young people in difficulty, but also to train and guide them in their social and professional integration. Called Life Project Centres, these sites also take the shape of entrepreneur micro-project incubators that make it possible for the youth to envision job integration through the creation of a micro-business.
Following its involvement in three East Asian countries (Philippines, Indonesia and Vietnam), the NGO has concentrated its efforts in India, with four centres opened in 2015 and 2016. Two sites are located in Kolkata, and two sites in Delhi: one welcomes young men in Paharganj, a famous neighborhood of Old Delhi; another center welcoming young women in Sangam Vihar, South Delhi has just been unveiled on June 28, 2016.
The volunteers provide the youths with an appropriate coaching programme which is spread across 18 months of commitment from the participant. In a week, two and half days are spent on working for a microeconomic activity, one and half day on several sessions on improving their English, IT and communications skills and finally one day per week on personal coaching to build the youth’s personal skills and life project plan. The students of the Paharganj area have developed a micro-finance activity called “Yummy”, a new brand of dried fruits which they further plan to commercialize. They also get an opportunity to visit different companies which allows them to meet professionals and get an idea of the work culture in multinational companies.
The program is divided in 4 successive phases that allow the young adult to climb a step after another: Autonomy, Responsibility, Management and Entrepreneurship (internship). They get a weekly allowance to progressively become independent, and also to develop the habit of saving money for their future social and professional reintegration.
Lastly, the NGO received support from CSR department of Veolia India, with a trainee going to the Paharganj centre on weekly basis to provide English and IT training programmes for the youth. On Friday July, 22, the whole CSR team of Veolia India visited the Paharganj center to meet the NGO volunteers and the LP4Y participants. This was the occasion to witness the graduation ceremony, where the youths publicly presented their professional projects and were granted the certificate indicating that they passed to a further stage of the training programme.
