Sonal Kapoor's blog

I work with street and slum girls and their mothers in India. Each day, as I walk through those dark lanes embroidered with brick and mortar, dungeons languish in abject obscurity and poverty, I cross many a road on which stand half naked women who stare at me with sad eyes. Most of them are mothers of the children I teach. I ask myself, 'Without the holistic development of the entire community, will just educating these children ever be enough to bring sustainable change?'

The issue of more and better jobs will stand ill addressed if this illiterate, non skilled, yet potential workforce is not tapped. I call this group the 'potential workforce' because I have seen the resilience of even the mediocre ones among them come out victorious in their struggle for survival. It is this group that needs to be effectively trained. For two years at Protsahan, we have trained some of these women how to make candles, sanitary napkins and hand bags. Just one skill was enough to increase their personal incomes by more than 400%. Although still at a very nascent stage, the economics of the entire community have shifted favorably. Better incomes resulted in better healthcare for their children and, more importantly, it created a sense of dignity that was essential to complete their womanhood. This sense of dignity might be an immeasurable metric, but it sure could be a direct index of the economy's well being, although on a micro-level.

My learnings from the recently concluded World Bank-IMF Annual Meetings 2011 where I represented India as a youth delegate. I am compiling them all together as lessons I learnt and how it changed my life and rewrote my history and understanding. Forever.

Lesson #1: The world has finally started taking the youth seriously.

Over the past 10 days or so, I had seen and felt that the youth opinion DOES MATTER to the policy makers at the World Bank and IMF. In individual meetings between CSOs, Bank, IMF Staff and Executive Directors, or at the Global Development debate on jobs opportunities for all, or at the flagship event, More and Better Jobs, I have realized that our opinion is acted upon stringently. Youth at the World Bank is a respected and celebrated group. When Jeremy Mark, Deputy Chief of Public Affairs, External Relations Department, encouraged me to go ahead and speak to Ms. Christine Lagarde, MD, IMF about a concern I had on issues in low income economies, I was pleasantly surprised. Honestly, I had not expected this open door policy concept of such higher up officials taking genuine and keen interest in the concerns that a youngster would have about the street children in her country, she is working with. Simply put, this sensitivity amazed me.