The brutal second wave of the pandemic may have subsided, but it has left a void for many such families. Deepa is Women in Tech (YT-ACE) ‘Family Find the Light’ (FFTL) program to provide a ray of hope for Deepa’s choice, which not only inspires and trains people in need, but also helps them Has been doing. Find a job fftl, which is being applied to a selfless Aadhaar, has currently enrolled 30 family members. with firms like ibm, Macquarie Global Services and FreshWorks coming on board, YT-ACE The target is to cover 5,000 such families. “I never had the confidence to be in charge of this situation. But somehow destiny brought me in touch with this program. Today with the help of this program I am acting as one human resource Professional in a real estate firm since last month. It is an entry-level job, but slowly I am learning to manage everything in life,” says Deepa, whose husband used to work with IBM.
Like Deepa, 30-year-old Anita (name changed) from Bangalore had never worked before. Tragedy struck her family when her husband, who worked as a project manager with IBM, died of Covid in May. When she came to the FFTL program, she regained her confidence and this helped her to secure a job as an analyst. “Before joining this program, I was very disappointed. I thought it was very unfortunate for me to lose my husband at a young age. But when I joined this program, I interacted with many young women who I had also lost my loved ones due to Covid. The sessions made me think of things from a different perspective. The mentoring and life-training sessions were very helpful in boosting my confidence and made me mentally strong,” Anita says.
The program specifically includes sessions on how to deal with loss, while also providing support with career mentoring and coaching. It helps the participants through mock tests and assessments around different points of life. They also get a chance to interact with superiors and mentors that help them manage life at this critical juncture, how to handle job interviews, how to manage job-life with kids and family, and how to get a job. , train on it.
Navin Upadhyay, senior advisor at WiT-ACE, who is leading these efforts, said that the job can bring much needed peace to an individual. On the other hand, the fear of running out of money can make people weak. “After IBM contacted us to understand how the industry can be more helpful to families who have lost an earner, several other companies have been able to help those in need with skills and advice. We have been putting a lot of emphasis on our network of companies to hire the needy and give them the orientation and confidence to go out and work.” Prachi Rastogi, D&I leader IBM Asia-Pacific, says, “In crisis like this, we start looking for external support for talent and this process takes a lot of time. We have never seen such synergy where the demand and supply of the company is met through this programme. We feel immense gratitude that we can support the dependents of our precious employees who lost their lives to covid. We never thought that we have such wonderful potential in their family members, just to be nurtured We are waiting. We have trained a large number of people through the FFTL program. Of course, these are not just numbers, they are a ray of hope for those who have lost a very important part of their lives. We respect his call for courage and we are doing everything we can to support him in his time of need.”
Freshworks CHRO Suman Gopalan says that the organization is fully committed to make a difference for those who have lost their earning family members to COVID and are finding it difficult to cope with both grief as well as loss of income. “With mentoring along with professional and emotional support, counseling and skills training, this program will allow them to move on with their lives and provide for their children and family,” Gopalan said.
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