A two-day Skill Mela organized by the Meghalaya State Skills Development Society (MSSDS) under Labour Department is underway at U Kiang Nangbah Government College Auditorium in Jowai.
The mela focuses on connecting job seekers with the employers through the job fair, providing a platform for entrepreneurs to showcase indigenous crafts and local produce in the haat bazaar and at the same time reaching out to the youth and inform them about the various options of skilling interventions available to them and to facilitate enrolment into such programmes.
It has a total of 45 stalls – 25 stalls for the haat bazaar where local entrepreneurs are showcasing local products. Trainees under Skill Meghalaya undergoing training in food processing, etc have also set up their stalls. There are 10 stalls in the job fair section where 10 employers of the State are participating and offering jobs in the sectors of Banking, IT, Hospitality, Unarmed Security, Insurance, Sales, Services, Automobile and Healthcare to mention a few.
Trainees undergoing training under Skill Meghalaya in the Jaintia region also participated in the job fair to register themselves for the jobs available. The remaining stalls are for trainee mobilization and enrolment with the various empanelled training providers.
Executive Director, Shivansh Awasthi informed that the Skill Mela has been organized under the Skill Meghalaya programme which was inaugurated in March 2022. He said the programme is a cohesive skill formation, entrepreneurship and placement framework for the State based on the current and emerging needs of the economies that envisions to design and implement practical programmes for youth development and youth empowerment.
The programme would cover 1.2 lakh youth in the next five years. He informed that in less than six months since its launch, 34 local training providers have been empanelled with a target of training 2595 youth in 14 sectors offering 35 trades in 44 training centres across 12 districts.
Jowai MLA Wailadmiki Shylla who inaugurated the mela said that skill development interventions play a crucial role in arming the youth with the required skill-sets for achieving self-dependency and a growing career. He emphasized the need for such intervention to focus on making youth more productive in the local economy that is, they should either lead to self-employment or employment within the State.
