Our Vocational Training Center, attached to our Amrita Children’s Home and launched in April 2009, was built to serve the population of the nearby slum settlement Jam City. The center is run in association with the CAP Youth Empowerment Institute.

Using computers and hands-on classroom sessions, the center trains unemployed adults in fields ranging from tailoring and housekeeping to carpentry, plumbing, and electrical trades. So far we’ve enrolled 293 students, with a course completion rate of more than 98 percent. 19 graduates have started their own businesses, and another 171 graduates have found work at existing companies, where they earn up to $400 USD a month – well above the poverty line.

Team building and leadership skills are an integral part of the vocational training programs. Beyond the training itself, course participants say the Center has become like a second home for them.