Nationality Indian Title Founder, CEO Spouse(s) Dr. Subodh R, Shenoy | Occupation Social Entrepreneur Board member of SCPwD, CII Alma mater University of Hyderabad | |
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Born 4 February Chennai, Tamil Nadu, India Known for Running training centers for persons with disabilities from rural India | ||
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Meera Shenoy, a social change maker, is founder of Youth4Jobs. She has dedicated her life to skilling underprivileged youth for jobs as she firmly believes that an organized sector job to one youth in a poor family takes the entire family out of poverty in a sustained manner. She works on policy, both with central and state governments, and has implemented projects in scale. Her recent assignment was Senior Advisor UNDP, Skilling & Employment and supporting Mr. Ramadorai, Advisor to the Prime Minister on Skilling, in his capacity as Chairman, NSDA.
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Early life
Meera Shenoy was born to a middle-class family in Chennai. Her mother has been an inspiration. One of the first women to get a seat in Vellore Medical College, she had to give up her education to marry an eligible only son. Meera’s mother learnt the intricacies of the stock market in the 70s, and grew her small inheritance to ensure little niceties which the three daughters wanted were always given. Growing up in a joint family, she was influenced by her grandfather, a district medical officer in the British rule India, who lived simply but donated generously to the needy.
Family and personal life
She is married to Dr. Subodh R, Shenoy, who is the son of India’s first market economist, B. R. Shenoy. Subodh is an eminent physicist and recipient of the SS Bhatnagar Award. He worked for 11 years on the rolls of the UNESCO funded ICTP (International Centre for Theoretical Physics), Trieste, Italy.
Pioneer: Starting & Scaling India’s First Jobs Mission
Meera Shenoy began her work in skilling as Executive Director of EGMM (Employment Generation & Marketing Mission) For the first time, her work made companies realize rural youth can be placed in entry level jobs when short term customized training is given. When she left after six years, it had trained 2, 20,000 youth with 70% placements. A unique IT architecture linked to e-payment was put in place for transparency. Her work was featured in Knowledge@Wharton and the Wall Street Journal.
Consultant, World Bank
She then worked as a specialist for the World Bank. In Bihar, she has worked closely with the Jeevika project to support the government in skilling strategy, capacity building of staff and its unique migration initiative. She has given invited talks in national and international forums including addressing students for their convocation.
Founder, Youth4Jobs
Meera Shenoy is founder of Youth4Jobs, which helps companies build an inclusive workforce. In a span of three years, Y4J has given organized sector placements to the largest number of disabled youth from poor families. The work has featured as a best practice by UNDP and World Bank. Y4J has a PPP with the Society for Elimination of Rural Poverty, AP govt. called Centre for PwD Livelihoods. For the retail sector, Y4J has co-created a brand called "Pankh" in partnership with TRRAIN founded by B Nagesh, Chairman, Retail Association of India. She was commissioned to do the ILO country strategy for disability and labour markets. She has worked with NSDC and Ministry of rural development develop their guidelines for skilling youth with disability. Meera Shenoy's book of inspirational stories associated with disability supported by Fetzer Institute, was launched at the Jaipur Literary Festival, the largest literary festival in the world.
Opening the very first training center in Hyderabad, Andhra Pradesh Youth4Jobs was scaled up to 20 cities across 10 states in India. Youth4Jobs not only trains youths with disabilities (locomotor disability, speech & hearing disability and low vision) but also places them in organized sector jobs that would otherwise be out of reach for them regardless of qualifications.
Honours and awards
Awards include: