Training rural youth to earn their livelihood

Where there is a will, there is a way, reads an ancient adage. This adage befits the life of Madhwaraj Suvarna, the founder of Narayana Guru Self- Employment Training Centre in Padubidri, who in real terms has elevated to be the harbinger of social security and economic stability in the lives of thousands of rural youth.

Started in 1980 in Katpadi, the centre for employment training has so far imparted free technical training to thousands of rural youth and unemployed persons from various walks of lives in Dakshina Kannada and Udupi districts and beyond.

With the remarkable achievement, Suvarna claims that the centre is the first institution in the State which started working for solving unemployment problem in rural areas.
Suvarna, looking back at the path that he has treaded to reach this position says that hailing from an extremely poor family, he underwent employment training under a Central government training programme in electrical works. On completing the training, his conscience did not permit him to start a workshop and eke a living just for himself.

“I knew it would be very selfish to think only of myself and my family. I wanted to do something that could help many more youth like me. Hence, I started a small workshop in Katpadi and started imparting free training in electrical works. In 1994, I shifted the workshop to Padubidri,” says Suvarna adding that large number of women, may it be the shy Koraga folk or the housewives, the training centre has never disappointed anyone coming into its portals with zeal for learning.

The specialty of the centre is that it offers training in over 150 items right from screen printing to photo lamination, from tailoring to sewing machine repairs, from transformer production to repairs and from motor winding to electrical lightning.

The centre has conducted hundreds of workshops on small investment home industries like detergent, phenyl and candle making, which has seen outstanding results.

With this dedication and commitment, Suvarna has several success stories to narrate. The students of the centre produced an electrical ‘nagari’ (drums used in temple during poojas), which now functions at a nearby temple.

A group of women who were trained in the centre are now producing emergency lights, which is available in the market with brand named ‘Power King’.

There are many more women who have been producing emergency lights at home and earning good income.

Several illiterate Koraga women have undergone technical training in the centre. These women are today seen as a confident lot running their busy hands over complicated transformers to make it work perfectly.

A set of 60 beedi workers after undergoing training in the centre are today engaged in electrical wiring work in a nearby village, thanks to Suvarna and his employment training centre.

After bringing about socio-economic change in the lives of so many people, ask this 49-year old reformer, what has been the most satisfying story in his life, pat comes the reply: “Training the group of HIV positive and employment trainings conducted by him for jail inmates.”

Suvarna says that he takes every day in the centre as his first day so the enthusiasm and zeal in work has not died down. Sri Narayana Guru is revered as one of the greatest social reformer.

Named after him, this centre by all means has lived up to its name.