TOI’s Mission Skill gets a big thumbs up from its readers

From offering their own agricultural land to corpus of lakhs of rupees and from volunteering to train migrant workers to promising employment to them in their own enterprise, readers of TOI have pledged support to the ‘Mission Skill’ in various ways.
The responses are extremely motivating as they make the TOI ‘Mission Skill’ a people’s movement. It is also an encouraging push to the goal of making Independence Day truly meaningful so that those less privileged have the freedom to do work of their choice and are not forced to leave their families behind in search of livelihood.
Uttar Pradesh has welcomed with open arms lakhs of migrants who have had to leave their workplace in other cities after the lockdown.
While the state government led by chief minister Yogi Adityanath has started a slew of measures to ensure jobs, healthcare and accommodation for them and their families, participation of people will be a welcome asset to the massive rehabilitation movement.
The participation, as our readers have written, can be in any form and in many cases, driven by emotion to lend a helping hand to a fellow native.
Dr (Col) Vishwanath Rai, for instance, is ready to offer not only his agricultural land but also a corpus of Rs 50 lakh to contribute to the movement.
“I request authorities to enable me to fulfil my dream of helping people of my native place by providing them employment opportunities,” he has written.
Naresh Verma has also offered to rope in migrant workers to work on his farmland for organic produce.
Lucknow resident Pankaj Gupta has written that he wants to recruit people to run an old-age home and orphanage.
Thinking about the families of migrant workers, Nivedita Babu has volunteered to train parents and teachers on early child development.
“Every child is a genius and unique in their own way. It is our duty to recognise and enable our children to reach their full potential,” she says.
Shashank Verma, the owner of a salon, has offered to train men and women migrants in various courses related to the industry and employ them.
Arpita Yadav, an entrepreneur, has said she wants more MSMEs from UP to work for her organization.
Several other readers such as Manicklal Chakraborty and Arjun Kohli have offered voluntary services to train migrants or help generate employment for them.