Yuvak Biradari’s “Mission YOU (Youth Opportunities and Upliftment)” aims to
be a customised, long-term, comprehensive youth livelihoods programme. It aims to
provide hands-on exposure to the world of work through local internships, developing self-
employment concepts on the basis of local needs and contributing to community
development. The programme nature, flavours, implementation and focus in each area
depends on the contexts in that region. This project is going to build on our Udaan project.
Udaan was aimed at unleashing the entrepreneurial instincts of young people. Udaan
workshops of Biradari have been based on self-employment and entrepreneurship
guidance. These have been largely conducted in Maharashtra, Gujarat, Uttar Pradesh for
youth who are mostly in their final year of graduation in rural, semi-urban and urban areas.
20,000 youth have been covered through these Udaan workshops which began in the year
2004. Mr. Amitabh Bachchan has also financially supported Udaan for a few years.
In the 70’s, 80’s and 90’s, Yuvak Biradari undertook large scale workshops on “Interview
training” in Maharashtra and other states to increase the employability of rural and urban
youth. After the year 2000, Biradari felt the need to shift the focus from employment to self-
employment as demand for jobs far exceeded the supply of jobs due to a growing
population, changing aspirations and urbanisation. Thus the ‘Udaan Abhiyaan’ of Yuvak
Biradari took birth.
