ASSSET partners with the Confederation of India Industries (CII)

Greetings!

I just arrived in Tucson a few hours ago from India after a very good trip.

I met with all the students at the two centers in Bangalore and one in Chennai.
In Chennai, I met Maya (not her real name) who was brought to Chennai by a relative who promised
to launch her career in Indian classical dance. Instead the relative sold her to a broker who drugged her and sent her off to Dubai where she became a sex slave. ASSET's NGO partner ICWO heard about Maya's case and launched a massive campaign. Three weeks later a drugged Maya was found by ICWO field workers near a railway station. Maya had a lot of questions about my family and spoke freely about her dreams for a better future using her newly learned computer skills.

My meeting with the Confederation of Indian Industries (http://www.ciionline.org) was very successful.

CII-southern region will be sending me a proposal for training 500 students from ASSET target group
in Tamil Nadu, Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka and Kerala in eleven specific industries where there is a severe shortage of skilled labor. Across India, CII has identified 25 areas and we will implement the same program
after the first pilot in Tamil Nadu. Initially ASSET will pay the fees of Rs. 5,000 per student ($125).
There is guaranteed placement in several fields and the Government of India will reimburse ASSET after
the students are placed so that the cycle can continue. CII will do the program evaluation and assessment.

The training in fields such as Electronics repair, Air-conditioning, Retail software training, Medical lab tech etc will be provided at approved and certified training centers and monitored by CII.

CII will charge a 10% fee and will bring in its wide network of CEOs as advisors as needed. As part of this package I have asked CII to evaluate the computer literacy programs in the 7 ASSET centers and also help in placement.

I have requested permission from donors for using their their donations for paying the student fees since other fields besides computer literacy were not included in my original request to them.

Thanks and regards.

Have a great weekend.

Ray Umashankar