IamBRAC: Planting the seeds for skilling a country’s youth

Joydeep Sinha Roy received this award in 2017 from Sir Fazle Hasan Abed. The BRAC Values Award is given to BRAC staff based on their reflection of the organisational values.

Working at an organisation like BRAC, the largest NGO in the world, is unlike any other job. It is more than a nine-to-five. Working at BRAC means being part of a great change. It goes beyond building a career in the development sector - we are part of a system that impacts the lives of millions around the world.

I have been with BRAC for the past 10 years. I joined the organisation as a Young Professional, in the education programme. After five years working in education, I joined BRAC’s skills development programme in 2015, when it was first launched.

Joydeep Sinha Roy is pictured receiving the Transformational Business award on behalf of BRAC, for the education and training category, hosted by The Financial Times and International Finance Corporation.

It is exciting to be a part of something since inception. When BRAC Skills Development Programme began its journey, it was a small-scale intervention - small projects and a close knit group of team members. In the early days, I remember working on a single project at a time. Now I find myself juggling 27 projects simultaneously.

Since its inception, BRAC has been addressing persistent challenges in development. Wherever there were people struggling due to infrastructural or resource barriers, BRAC went in to solve problems.

Unemployment was an issue in Bangladesh when the skills programme began. How can the youth of Bangladesh navigate their way in the skill-based job market? We envisioned a platform to provide young people with the opportunity to learn quality skills. It feels rewarding to be part of something which has grown to be crucial in alleviating unemployment in Bangladesh.

Our founder, late Sir Fazle Hasan Abed, believed that women, especially the ones from rural communities, are often left behind the most in terms of accessing education, nutrition and healthcare, financial literacy or livelihood opportunities. BRAC, to address that inequality, puts the rights and development of women at the heart of its work. In the skills programme, the majority of the people we train are women.

Women face unique challenges when it comes to having access to livelihood opportunities in Bangladesh, and, through the skills programme, we try to help alleviate that by training women and linking them with income opportunities. We also work towards changing employers’ perceptions about hiring women, as well as creating and maintaining a safe and gender-sensitive work culture for women staff.

Our work at BRAC Skills Development Programme, much like the rest of BRAC, looks at solving problems through a holistic approach. For example, the people we train are not only taught the technical aspects of a job, but the social ones as well. We ensure that they are not apt in the tasks they will set out to do, but also have the soft skills to manage their tasks and professional relationships effectively. The skills programme teaches workers essential communication skills needed in the job market.

In the next five years, I hope to see BRAC Skills Development Programme explore new arenas, catering to new different demographics. There will be changes in the modalities, and we will be extending our services to many new different groups in addition to our current target groups. I want to materialise an expansion in terms of our outreach, not just geographical, but in socioeconomic aspects as well.

As the skills programme continues to grow, opportunities will continue to come from this growth - to learn from experiences, and to solve emerging issues. Being a part of BRAC means believing in hope and striving with ambition. I believe we will be able to attain that ambition with hard work and persistence.