Tejaswini Yojana in Jharkhand

Tejaswini Yojana intends to improve the socio-economic empowerment of adolescent girls and young women in the select districts of Jharkhand. 

The project will be implemented in 17 districts of Jharkhand where the SABLA scheme of the Government of India is not being implemented. The programme has already been implemented in two districts Ramgarh and Dumka and is now being rolled out at other 15 districts as well.

The project will be implemented over five years, with a total cost of $90 million, including a $63 million loan from the World Bank. 

Eligibility Criteria of Tejaswini Yojana in Jharkhand

Adolescent girls and young women in the age group of 14-24 years from the state of Jharkhand.

Implementation

Jharkhand Women Development Society (JWDS) will implement the Tejaswini project under the overall supervision and guidance of the Department of Women, Child Development and Social Security (DWCDSS), Government of Jharkhand. The major activities/ interventions under the project are:

• Establishing and Operating Tejaswini Clubs: Groups of Adolescent Girls and Young Women (AGYW) identified and enrolled with the project will be formed in 17 identified project districts. These groups will be referred to as Tejaswini Clubs.

• Life Skills and Business Skills Training: Life skills education will be provided to all AGYW beneficiaries enrolled with the project under Tejaswini clubs. Besides, community-level business skills training will be provided to the interested beneficiaries for increasing young women’s capacity to generate income through self-employment and micro-enterprise.

• Providing Non-formal Education and Vocational Skills Training: It is envisaged to link beneficiaries aged 14-20 years to the enhanced bridge and non-formal education through the open schooling system. Simultaneously, beneficiaries aged 16-24 years will be linked to vocational skills training (for both wage employment and self-employment) through performance-based contracts with select qualified providers.

• Enhanced outreach of project intervention through intensive service delivery: Project will pilot and evaluate more intensive community-level service delivery models focused on increasing young women’s access to educational interventions, training, and employment opportunities. This intervention will be implemented in two districts (Dumka and Ramgarh) in addition to the 15 other project districts selected for non-intensive interventions. The sub-activities include:

  • Deploying additional youth facilitators for every Tejaswini club, compared to one facilitator for every two clubs in the other 15 districts

  • Establishment of Cluster level resource centre for AGYW

  • Local full-time designated safe space (“cluster centre”) leased and operated by the NGO provider in approximately 200 sites • Interventions for enhanced outreach to hard-to-reach populations

  • Top-up group cash grant will be provided to Tejaswini Clubs, that apply, having the more vulnerable populations to support self-employment opportunities

  • Extra efforts in motivating Tejaswini Clubs with better access to informal credit support to complete business and livelihood skills training and pursue self-employment

• Facilitating inter-departmental coordination and convergence: Formulation of the state strategy and plan of action, developed in a consultative manner and approved by the state government, will provide a platform for convergent action of existing programs and institutions for socio-economic empowerment of AGYW in Jharkhand.

• Strengthening the M&E system: A robust M&E system will be prepared to monitor beneficiary mobilization, participation, case management, and payments as well as any grievances or appeals. The project will support the design, development, and operation of an automated program MIS for the project/.

• Service provision through NGO service providers: NGO service providers will be engaged to implement the community-level interventions about mobilization, engagement of youth facilitators, club formation, counselling and guidance to AGYW, and setting up of community-level full-time safe spaces (cluster centres), among others.

• Benefit payment to AGYW for Completion of Vocational Skills Training and Non-formal Education: The project will provide contingent cash transfers to the beneficiaries participating in these courses for incentivizing regular participation in, and completion of Non-Formal Education and vocational skills training courses.

• Capacity building of DWCDSS & JWDS and implementation support through a state-level resource centre for empowerment of adolescent girls and young women that will provide ongoing support to DWCDSS in evidence-based policy and program development, process and impact evaluations, knowledge management and need-based program augmentation. Besides, an in-depth Training Needs Assessment of the project stakeholders at all levels will also be undertaken along with the development of training modules.

• Public Education and Communication: The project would support the development and implementation of a comprehensive communication strategy and campaign to raise awareness and citizen accessibility to social care services. These would include design, printing and dissemination of posters, handbills and other audio-visual materials. Community mobilization and communications with an emphasis on engaging families and community leaders (especially men) in support of girls’ program participation and broader access to educational and economic opportunities.

• System strengthening through standard tools and procedures: Project will facilitate the development of standard tools/ reporting formats for the project; support development of relevant guidelines and guidelines for project implementation, partnerships and human resource management led by JWDS; and formulation of a state strategy and plan of action for convergent action on the empowerment of AGYW