Kudumbashree : Success Story of Career Guidance PSC Coaching Centre

Extending Career Guidance and finding livelihood: Success Story of Career Guidance PSC Coaching Centre

Career counseling is a type of advice-giving and support provided by career counselors to their clients, to help the clients manage their journey through life, learning and work changes/career. Career Counseling includes career exploration, making career choices, managing career changes, lifelong career development and dealing with other career-related issues. Career counseling typically denotes a professional intervention which is conducted either one-on-one or in a small group. What unites all types of professional counseling is the role of practitioners, who combine giving advice on their topic of expertise with counseling techniques that support clients in making complex decisions and facing difficult situations.

Career guidance PSC coaching centre

Career guidance PSC coaching centre is a small enterprise unit formed by Kudumbashree Mission NHG members from Idukki district of Kerala. They started this unit to help the youth in the rural area to possess a government job and thereby secure their livelihood. One of the member in this unit is a retired Government school teacher and a member of a Self-Help Group since 1998. This Self Help Group became a Kudumbashree unit during the year 2000. The members of this Kudumbashree unit decided to start a Micro Enterprise unit in 2016.

Based on their previous experience and the rareness of such institution in that area lead them to launch a career guidance PSC coaching centre. They started this Micro Enterprise unit by taking a loan from the bank, now it is working in the building of Pambadumpara Panchayat. The main source of income of this Micro Enterprise unit is the fees collected from the students. They charge Rs 10,000 per student for a year. They allowed a discount of 10% of fee to the members and dependents of Kudumbashree units.

 After the completion of first year three students got job as Lower Division Clerk (LDC) in various departments. And that itself was the turning point of this micro enterprise unit. Then twenty-three students got job in various governmental departments like Local Self-Government Department and Excise Guard. That result uplifted the unit in to a first grade institution. They also give advertisement in the local medias regarding those results. Later, they decided to expand the center to the various places of Idukki districts. As of now, eight teaching staff are working there and it is managed by a retired school teacher who is a member of Kudumbashree Mission.

Instead of making profit, from their micro enterprise unit, they aim to eradicate poverty in the families of students by help them securing a government job. They also provide free training to students having medical issues. Their plan is to mobilize more students and through that they can increase profit. The main problem they are facing is the height amount of rent paid for the building. They decided to start a crash course batch as a development.

It is the unity and confidence of the team members that made Career guidance PSC coaching centre a success. The success story of this group of women can undoubtedly be considered an embodiment of women empowerment.