Author: Sham

The Goducate Lifeskills Center in India caters mainly to university students. It aims to prepare these students for the job market, to face the world beyond the university. The Center has just finished a program targeted at the women members. It aimed at teaching women how to look after themselves in this wider world.

The topics covered ranged from simple ways of looking after their health, to how to figure out the signs of a good friend and how to be a good friend, to how to manage conflicts in relationships. Also, at a time when newspapers are rife with the physical dangers that women in India face, one of the topics was self-defence for women. This session offered the women safety tips, taught them some self-defence techniques, and gave them a resource list for developing a personal safety plan.

Every session was dealt very practically, with games and live examples. It was good to see the ladies enjoy themselves and become more confident mentally.

Goducate has completed a lifeskills training program at the Government City College, Hyderabad. This 85-year-old college is one of the oldest and most famous in the city. It is a constituent college of Osmania University and offers both undergraduate and postgraduate courses. Its campus, with its architecturally magnificent and imposing building that has been declared a heritage monument by the Andhra Pradesh High Court, is situated some 40 km from Goducate’s Global LifeSkills Center.

The college authorities selected some 60 students for this program, and between November 2013 and February 2014 a team from the Global LifeSkills Center went over went over to the college every week for 14 weeks to conduct the program. The sessions were activity based, with time for questions and answers. Every session was lively and well received by the students, who responded well. Even members of the faculty attended the sessions. Some of the topic covered were: getting along with people of different behaviors, being confident, goal setting, time management, thinking out of the box, and team building.

In keeping with the aim of the Global LifeSkills Center to prepare the young for the global world, the topics covered are issues that students will face as they go through their college education and after they graduate. We hope that the participants learnt principles that will help them face challenges in life.

We will probably be returning to the college when the next academic year starts in June.