Imparting entrepreneurial skills to schoolchildren

Launched a few weeks ago the initiative called Map of Me (MoM) is soon to address probable entrepreneurs across India.

For Lisa, MoM is a mobile/digital set of stories to enable young people to learn 21st Century Entrepreneurial Skills and explore new problem solving enterprises.

MOM is about skills and how to be an entrepreneur in near your locality, how to get people together around your idea, how to start a profit making enterprise and create jobs. MOM is designed for two kinds of youth, one for those in age group of 18-23 who have smart phones and travel by public transport and other for teens studying in grade 11 and 12. Through MoM these youth can explore the 26 steps to make working plan.

Lisa, founder of 'Going to School' NGO, shares, "After relocating to India most of the times I forget I'm a woman and here there are many restrictions. Someone keeps reminding me every time I land myself in such a situation or place. But It's also a reminder that we must keep visiting these places to change the mentality restricting women."

The young women are battling gender based norms like getting married, bearing children and being a homemaker, no motivation for choosing professional career, etc,. However, she says her first book was possible only because of a group of men from Bharti Foundation believed in her idea," adds Lisa.

About her NGO, she says, ''We run a large scale skill development programme in around 1,000 Government Secondary Schools in partnership with the Bihar government and supported by IKEA Foundation. We created 30 graphic novels to enable students of grade 9 -12 to choose their own adventure to explore sustainable enterprises as career options locally. With schools closed due to Covid pandemic, the graphic novels have been made into a DIY youth skill series which is being telecast on television by DD in the state of Bihar reaching 20 million youth."