Memorandum submitted by Y Care International
INTRODUCTION
1. Y Care International (YCI) is the overseas
relief and development agency of the YMCA movement in UK and Ireland.
YCI focuses on international youth development, in particular
supporting vulnerable and marginalised young people in the developing
world. Y Care International develops and funds over 70 youth projects
in partnership with local YMCAs and YWCAs in 30 countries across
Africa, Asia, Latin America, the Middle East, and Eastern Europe.
2. Our current priority programmes target
young people at risk, working and street children, girls and young
women, young refugees and displaced people, and young people with
disabilities. Areas of programme work focus on six key areas:
skills development and employment, HIV/AIDS and health awareness,
citizenship and democracy, emergency and post-conflict work, youth
justice and rehabilitation and advocacy and youth leadership.
Y Care International offers support to YMCA and YWCA projects,
developed with local communities and youth groups, irrespective
of the race, colour, gender, nationality or religion of the participants.
3. YCI has worked in partnership with the
India YMCA movement since 1984. The India YMCA movement consists
of over 500 YMCAs, each of which represents a not-for-profit autonomous
NGO, working on behalf of the Indian communities throughout the
country. Part of the worldwide federation and regional federation
of YMCAs, the first YMCA was established in 1857. The YMCA movement
is based on Christian ideals but is equally an interfaith movement,
working with those of all faiths and none.
4. YCI currently works with YMCA partners
in Gujarat, Tamil Nadu, Jharkand, Bihar, Uttar Pradesh, Madhya
Pradesh, Karnataka, Kerala and Orissa. We support pro-poor development
projects, with a specific focus on empowering marginalized and
disadvantaged young people. YCI currently supports projects in
the following areas: skills training, youth empowerment, capacity
building, education and HIV/AIDS awareness. YCI has also worked
with YMCAs and other international agencies in responding to natural
disasters, such as the Orissa cyclone in 1999 and the Gujarat
earthquake in 2001.
5. In response to the International Development
Select Committees inquiry into bilateral assistance to India,
YCI and our partners in the India YMCA movement will be responding
specifically to point three, "Partnerships/social inclusion/
sector focus", paying particular attention to point four,
the extent to which DFIDI is focusing its activities on the most
vulnerable and marginalised groups, including through engagement
with civil society.
PARTNERSHIPS/SOCIAL
INCLUSION/SECTOR
FOCUS
6. YCI welcomes the DFID India Country Plan,
2004-08, and the priority that DFID has given to assisting India's
development over the next four years. YCI believe that it is essential
that DFID provide aid to India whilst huge disparities continue
to exist in poverty levels between and within states, and especially
amongst those from marginalised groups. We also believe that,
as the report outlines, there is a need for policy dialogue with
key line ministries and engagement with civil society.
7. However, YCI consider that insufficient
attention has been given in DFID's India Country Assistance Plan
to the importance of reducing poverty amongst young people. Almost
a fifth of the population are between the ages of 15 and 24 years
of age, and literacy levels of young people in India still remain
very low, with approximately 43% of young people aged 15 and over
illiterate. (UN India Country Profile on the Situation on Youth,
1998). In addition, unemployment amongst young people remains
high, at 40 to 50% of all rural unemployed and 58 to 60% of the
urban unemployed (ILO Training and Employment Paper 36, 1998).
YCI are also concerned at the growing levels of HIV infection
amongst young people in India, with young people making up an
increasingly high proportion of those living with HIV.
8. We appreciate that DFID recognise the
challenges around education and HIV/AIDS, as highlighted in the
Country Assistance Plan and Millennium Development Goals (MDGs),
however, YCI believe that DFID do not distinguish young people,
and the specific contribution and role they make in tackling poverty,
as they do with other marginalised groups eg scheduled caste/tribes
and women. YCI believe that the only effective way to tackle these
issues is to mainstream youth in its strategy to tackle poverty
in India.
9. YCI are particularly concerned about
high levels of poverty amongst marginalised and vulnerable young
people in India, in particular young people of scheduled tribes
and young people living with a disability.
10. Over the past 10 years, YCI has been
working with local YMCA partners in northern Kerala, and central
Madhya Pradesh to try to address some of the problems faced by
tribal youth and their families. The areas are characterised by
high levels of illiteracy and unemployment, a lack of skills training
opportunities, a lack of primary health care, drinking water and
sanitation, poor housing, alcohol addiction and a lack of effective
leadership. The vast majority of the young people in employment,
work on plantations in exploitative environments for long hours
and extremely low pay. YCI are working to reduce the vulnerability
of tribal young people by providing them with access to skills
training and employment opportunities. However, there is an urgent
need for state level intervention to help overcome the problems
and causes of poverty amongst tribal people, especially tribal
youth.
11. In Tamil Nadu, YCI is working with the
Madurai YMCA Centre for the Hearing Impaired in providing education,
skills training and employment opportunities for hearing impaired
children and young people. The India Disability Act (1995) aimed
to increase the participation, education and employment of hearing
impaired people, however, there has been inconsistency in the
implementation of these policies at a state level.
12. YCI fully support DFID's commitment
to broadening engagement with civil society, in particular the
groupings that can link marginalised groups to their government
at a state level. In order to ensure that there is an integrated
approach to tackling youth poverty, discrimination, skills development
and economic needs, YCI believe that there is a need to strengthen
existing youth, education, health and labour ministries at state
and national level. At the same time, the impoverished youth NGO
sectors in India, whilst playing a vital role, needs funding,
co-ordination and political support from the youth ministry, in
order to enable them to deliver more effective youth programmes
that reach the poorest young people.
CONCLUSION
13. DFID's bilateral programme of assistance
to India rightly recognises the need for developing a more integrated
approach to tackling poverty, by meeting the needs of the most
marginalised groups and through policy dialogue with key line
ministries and support for civil society groups.
14. YCI believe that young people represent
a marginalised group that should be mainstreamed in India's strategy
to tackle poverty. DFID has a clear role, through DFID's National
Programme and its dialogue with line ministries and partnerships
with development agencies and civil society, to support and help
facilitate this process. YCI believe that it is vital that strong
linkages and partnerships are developed between the youth ministry
and youth agencies in order to ensure that a co-ordinated and
comprehensive strategy to tackling poverty amongst marginalised
young people is achieved.
May 2004
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