New Delhi, October 6, 2020.

FLO, the Women’s Wing of FICCI, today signed an MoU with National Skill Development Corporation (NSDC) for empowering women through skill training to enhance their employability and promote entrepreneurship.  

With a primary focus on sustainable livelihood generation for women, the collaboration between the two organizations will support empowerment of women to create sustainable economic possibilities at different levels - grassroots, medium and senior.

FLO and NSDC will work towards supporting short-term training of women in various sectors such as healthcare, tourism and hospitality among others; and will aid with domestic and overseas placements.  

Commenting on the association, Dr. Manish Kumar, MD & CEO, NSDC “Increase of women participation in the workforce is a key element to the overall development of our country. Under Skill India Mission, we are committed to empowering women workforce through gender mainstreaming of skills and providing them with opportunities to become self-reliant. This alliance will strengthen our efforts to enable better employability and livelihood opportunities for women by imparting market-relevant skill training for various job roles in India and even globally.”

FLO National President, Ms. Janabi Phookan said, “For an Aatmanirbhar Bharat, it is important to take the women along. This is the need for the hour and as a business chamber working towards the goal of inclusive growth, our focus is on the role of women in reviving the economy and making India self-reliant. FLO will be the facilitator in the process and will connect women with the relevant stakeholders, from training in specific verticals for enhancing their livelihood opportunities, increasing their self-awareness as equal partners in the nation’s growth and working towards their economic empowerment.”

National Skill Development Corporation (NSDC) is committed to promoting skill development by catalyzing creation of large, quality and for-profit vocational institutions. A unique public-private-partnership entity, NSDC engages a gamut of stakeholders including industry bodies, corporates, academicians, and Central & State governments to raise employability of workforce through vocational training, digital learning and soft skills.  Through direct interventions and partnerships, it enables an ecosystem focusing on quality assurance, technology, capacity-building, gender mainstreaming and convergence in skill development.

FLO plays an integral part in this process and contributes effectively towards the growth agenda of the nation. Since the inception in 1983, FLO has been working towards empowering and enabling women entrepreneurs and professionals of India and working towards economic self-reliance.

The MoU between FLO and NSDC will be under the auspices of the FLO 3Cs initiative.  FLO believes in skilling, leading to livelihood generation, creating micro entrepreneurs and help build nano enterprises. The 3C initiative of FLO- Competency, Capacity and Confidence building through transformational Life Skills & Technical Education Adopt ITI Programme (AITIP) will empower women with tools and knowledge that will enable them to become economically independent. This will in turn enhance the perception of women’s contribution to household income and family welfare resulting in sustainable livelihood and increasing women’s participation in household decisions. 3C initiative complements NSDC’s work on increasing the female labor force participation.  

Dharitri Patnaik, Chapter Chairperson, Bhubaneshwar and National Head of FLO 3Cs initiative was the Day Chair for the session.