Ministry of Tribal Affairs hosted a Webinar along with Facebook India for sensitization of Members of Parliament (MPs) from Scheduled Tribe (ST) Constituencies of India on “Going Online As Leaders (GOAL) Project”.
GOAL Project
GOAL (Going Online as Leaders) is an initiative launched by the Ministry of Tribal Affairs (MoTA) in partnership with Facebook India to digitally skill and empower 5000 youth from tribal communities to become leaders of tomorrow by leveraging the power of digital technology. GOAL Project is aimed at identifying and mobilizing 2500 renowned people from industry (policy makers and influencers), teachers, artists, entrepreneurs, social workers etc. known for their achievements in their domain areas, to personally mentor tribal youths across India. The initiative has been designed to allocate two mentees to a mentor.
It is a digital skilling and mentorship initiative that will engage renowned leaders and experts in their respective domains—from business, education, health, politics, arts and entrepreneurship among others. This program will empower and enable scheduled tribe youths to become change makers of tomorrow. The initiative primarily targets capacity building of youths living in tribal areas which will inspire, guide and encourage them to boost their confidence level and ignite higher aspirations among them. The acquired skills and abilities will help them gain leadership skills, identify problems in their society, find solutions to fight the challenges and use their knowledge to support their livelihood as well as the society’s socio-economic status. The core areas of mentorship program are digital literacy, life skills and leadership & entrepreneurship.
Each engagement with mentee will be of nine months or 36 weeks:
- Month 1 to Month 7 (28 weeks): Mentees from tribal communities will be connected to mentors.
- Month 8 and Month 9 (8 weeks): Shortlisted mentees will get internship opportunities in reputed organizations.
No financial remuneration will be provided to any mentor or mentee. Youth from tribal communities between 18-35 years of age can apply to become mentee. It is open for all youth from tribal communities irrespective of whether they are part of any educational institute or not or in any kind of profession or even undertaking any training.
The Ministry of Tribal Affairs has partnered with the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology for leveraging the strong network of its Common Service Centres (CSCs). Youths from tribal communities can visit their nearest CSC to apply under this program. Once tribal youths are selected in the program, they will be provided smart phones with internet access for one year. The project will be delivered digitally using video-based mechanisms such as Facebook Messenger and WhatsApp. Mentors and mentees will interact through these apps, and all material will be provided in digital format only.
