Mobilising a new career path for Mahendra

While growing up in rural India, Mahendra`s childhood dream was to work in engineering. However, due to his parent’s low income, he was unable to receive a proper education to become an engineer. Once he became a father, he felt pressured to quickly find work in order to support his family. Like many youths in his village, Mahendra found himself working as a wage labourer due to a lack of job opportunities.

“I was not happy, as I never liked doing labouring work but I had no alternative,” recounts Mahendra.

As a result, the development of training programs as part of ChildFund India’s Prevention of Child Trafficking in South Rajasthan Training Project was life-changing for not only Mahendra, but for many children and youths in his village.

“I saw a ray of hope when I heard about the training program. Without a second thought, I said yes and joined the program.”

At its core, the project aims to protect children’s rights and prevent the trafficking of children in India, which sometimes occurs due to high levels of poverty and a lack of employment opportunities. As a subset, the initiative also involves providing vulnerable youths with new sets of skills that will allow them to have new job prospects within their communities.