Chandigarh : In Ludhiana’s ChuharMajra village, 32-year-old Parampreet Kaur is a “Changemaker” employed with Learn Labs, an after-school program focused on providing children the tools and the right environment to learn through collaboration and technology.
Every day, Parampreet mentors about 15-20 children in her village in21st-century life skills, including foundational literacy, creativity, problem solving and computer skills. The salary she earns from this job has helped her transform her life. Before she joined Learn Labs, Parampreet’s family was struggling to pay back debt. Her husband lost his job due to health issues, and she had to sell off some of her possessions to make ends meet. During this hard time, she heard about the Roundglass Foundation. They trained her to be a mentor at Learn Labs, and Parampreet slowly regained her financial independence and dignity. “I could repay my loan and stand up for myself. This job has given me confidence and respect in my community,” says Parampreet.
Like her, there are more than 500 Changemakers in Punjab’s villages who have been mentored and skilled by the Roundglass Foundation. The grassroots Changemakers are financially independent and driving social transformation within their communities through co-owned and co-created interventions rooted in sustainability, sports, and health.
Skilling rural youth for better economic and community outcomes
Roundglass Foundation’s Changemaker Program identifies local youth from the villages who would like to work with them to make a difference in their villages. The Foundation trains and mentors these local youth in relevant skills to execute its on-the-ground programs in villages,like Sports Centres, Learn Labs, and Yoga Centres, to enable community-led change from within.
Training rural youth in skills, in the long run, can prove a gamechanger in a state like Punjab, where the joblessness rate in the 15-29 age group surged from 12.2% in July-September 2024 to 14.9% in October-December 2024, according to the latestPeriodic Labour Force Survey. Punjab also figures in the top 10 states with high unemployment rates as per the latest data from the National Sample Survey Office.
Mandeep Singh and Satnam Singh from Malerkotlaare two football players and Changemakers who upskilled with the Roundglass Foundation Coach Certification Program and now train local kids in football. “Until now, what we played was just kicks. Now we understand how football is played, how to manage movement and make accurate passes,” says Mandeep, who is from Dalanwala village and trains boys and girls from neighbouring villages as well.
“We picked up many new skills. Now, we can train the children with everything we learned today and hopefully improve their performance in future,” says Satnam Singh from Balewal village.
Bringing social transformation from within communities
These coaches are training children in sports while also focusing on their holistic development.They are also chipping away at centuries-old gender stereotypes by motivating girls to come out and play. Today, 3,000 girls in different villages in Punjab train in football daily, thanks to the efforts of coaches like Mandeep and Satnam.
Talking about training village youth in skills, Vishal Chowla, Leader, Roundglass Foundation, says, “At Roundglass Foundation, we believe in creating opportunities for people in rural communities to take control of their destiny and live with respect and financial agency. We empower and mentor rural youth with skills that can help them transformtheir own lives through personal growth and financial independence, while driving social change within their communities. We have skilled more than 500 Changemakers so far, and more than 70% of them are women.”
The Changemakers are supported through regular capacity-building workshops, exposure visits, and toolkits. But what fuels their impact is something harder to quantify—trust. They are known in their villages and understand the cultural and social context. Their community listens to them when they introduce something new, a yoga session, a talk on menstrual hygiene or a skill-based learning circle. Changemakers are deeply rooted in the village ethos, bringing about social transformation from within and, thereby, making it sustainable.
Giving financial agency to rural women
“This work has changed my life,” says Parminder Kaur, a Changemaker in Ludhiana. “Earlier, I used to hesitate to speak in front of people. Now, I lead women’s health sessions in my village. I feel confident, I feel valued.” Parminder is one of more than 100 rural women trained in basic yoga to be instructors. She now conducts yoga sessions in her village 5 days a week. These sessions are free for the attendees while the Foundation pays her the stipend.
Like Parminder, Happy Devi from Chandpur village is the first female yoga teacher in her village community and talks about how getting skilled in yoga has changed her life. “I eat properly now and feel good within myself,” says Happy Devi, who has been married for 15 years and spent most of that time at home. “Now, I earn…I bought gifts for my husband and mother-in-law with my first salary. Ten more women from my village have joined the yoga program after seeing me,” says Happy Devi.
Skilling village youth to be local grassroots Changemakers serves two purposes: One, it enables individual growth and transformation, and second, it helps entire communities live with greater health and wellbeing. Roundglass Foundation is committed to nurturing this growing community of village Changemakers to bring about collaborative and sustainable social change in Punjab’s villages.
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