The Ministry of Tribal Affairs on Friday launched a digital programme to upskill and empower 5000 youths in the country.
The GOAL(Going Online As Leaders) programme that has been developed by the tribal affairs ministry in partnership with social media giant Facebook was launched at a webinar in New Delhi.
“The GOAL programme is designed to provide mentorship to tribal youth through digital mode,” stated a government notification.
“The digitally-enabled program envisages to act as a catalyst to explore hidden talents of the tribal youth, which will help in their personal development as well as contribute to all-round upliftment of their society,” it added.
The program will focus on three core areas – digital literacy, life skills and leadership and entrepreneurship, and on sectors such as agriculture, art & culture, handicrafts & textiles, health, nutrition, among others.
“In this program, 5000 scheduled tribe youth (to be called as ‘Mentees’) will get an excellent opportunity to get training by experts from different disciplines and fields (to be called as ‘Mentors’). There will be 1 mentor for 2 mentees,” the statement said.
The mentees and mentors will be selected based on their inputs in such a way that it represents tribal youth from varied professions and has representation from the urban and rural area across India.
The IT-based system is designed to match mentors and mentees so that they are from a similar profession and preferably speak the same language.
The selected mentees will remain engaged in the program for nine months or 36 weeks comprising of 28 weeks of mentorship followed by eight weeks of internship.
All the selected mentees will be provided with smartphones and Internet access for one year by Facebook along with exposure to various external forums that will give the opportunity to the participants to showcase their entrepreneurial skills and leadership abilities.
To enrol for the programme, one must on portal goal.tribal.gov.in which will be open for two months from May 4, 2020, to July 3. 2020