It was an irresistible offer for Sharanappa to learn driving lessons without spending any money. This means a lot for Sharanappa who struggles to pay his college fees. Coming from a very weaker socio-economic family of the society, his parents work as a stone cutter and earns 300-500 rupees every day based on availability.

The family doesn’t have any land and did not have a house until last year when the government granted a single room, tin sheet roofed house. Despite all the odds, Sharanappa’s parents tried their best to educate their children. Sharanappa is the second son is pursuing his final year B Com in Veer Bhadhreshwar Shikshan Trust, Humnabad. His elder brother is an agricultural coolie whose work is seasonal. His younger brother failed in PUC and joined his parents to work whenever the work is available. The youngest brother is doing his PUC and his sister, a high school dropout was married off last year. Since his brother had discontinued his education and started earning, Sharanappa can pursue his bachelor’s degree. He is doing well.

He along with other marginalized individuals were supported by the ‘Swatantra’ project of ORBIT, the diocesan social development wing under the aegis of Caritas India. The project supports 70 rural men and women for their skill development in the trades of driving, tailoring, beautician, computers, and communications at Gulbarga, Karnataka. The objective of the is project is to empower youth and women from backward communities to learn employment skills and increase their family income enhancing the standard of living by accessing quality health and infrastructure in their family.

All these individuals learning driving will be employed either in the private sector, Uber/Ola or Public careers on Hyderabad Mumbai transport. Similarly, individuals taking different skill trainings will be linked with the PRI for self-employment loans, banks, and Samruddhi Credits from KROSS to initiate their livelihood.

Sharanappa is undergoing a one-month driving course and is extremely happy and grateful for this opportunity to learn driving for free. A minimum of Rs. 6,000/- is needed to learn driving and to get the license if it was not for Swathantra project. He is confident that he could start working part-time or full time as a driver until he gets a proper job after his studies. His dream is to work and help his parents by reducing the financial burden of supporting the family. He thanks ORBIT for adding wings to his dream because there was none to support the youth this way, Sharanappa says. He also observed that the theoretical classes on traffic rules, signals, and symbols; life skill sessions on topics like HIV/AIDS, Cancer, Social Problems, etc. are quite helpful to be an effective citizen and driver.