Outreach project sets self-help dreams alight

Guwahati: Life will never be the same for 37-year-old Supol Baskey from Baksa, a western Assam district which generally makes news for all the wrong reasons.
Supol, who now kills time by playing football till dusk, is soon going to be too busy to do any such thing. Having learnt how to make candles and incense sticks at a programme by Bosco Reach Out (BRO), a non-profit organization, Supol is planning to start his own incense stick business.
“Becoming self-dependent was my main concern. After being trained at the BRO organized programme, I can now make agarbattis to earn a living. I am looking forward to receiving financial assistance from banks,” Supol, one of the youngsters who attended the month-long programme, said on Monday.
Like Supol, 63 participants from Baksa, Udalguri, Darrang and Kamrup (Metro) districts, who attended the programme, are equally enthusiastic about launching their own ventures.
Executive director of BRO, Fr. Thomas Kunnapillil, said mitigating the state’s unemployment problem by providing opportunities for self-employment would help struggling youngsters.
“People can make good money and improve their standard of living through such low-investment micro enterprises. Continuous increase in population and rising levels of unemployment, especially among youths, have created socio-economic problems in our society. Capacity and skill are the two most important aspects which should be considered while establishing micro enterprises,” Fr. Thomas added.
He said banks and concerned government agencies should promote such micro enterprises among the rural populace. According to some of the participants, the programme not only motivated them to start their micro enterprises, it has also fueled their entrepreneurial dreams.
Fr. A Jayaprakash, associate director of BRO, expressed his happiness over the successful completion of the programme and urged participants to utilize their new-found knowledge and skill to increase their income. “There is ample scope for becoming self-dependent if our youngsters engage in such productive pursuits,” he said.