FFFAI celebrates International Women’s Day initiating on-job training for underprivileged

Class Room training for the underpriviledged women being conducted by FFFAI

The International Women’s Day celebrated on 8th March 2024 at the headquarters of the Federation of Freight Forwarders’ Associations in India (FFFAI) would be another milestone achieved thanks to its Women’s Wing. The Federation has announced a three-month apprenticeship programme in shipping and logistics for women candidates from the underprivileged women in the sections of the society. FFFAI has launched this pioneering initiative in association with an NGO called Lok Bharti.

Lok Bharti is a non-government organization dedicated towards identifying, assessing and bridging the skill-gaps prevalent in various sectors of the Indian economy. It has devised short term and primarily workshop-based programmes to skill and re-skill individuals and provide the industry with trained manpower that is productive from day one.

The focus of Lok Bharti is on employment and employability by closely collaborating with industry to ensure a steady flow of job opportunities for the trainees. The organization has approached FFFAI’s Women’s Wing and training arm Indian Institute of Freight Forwarders (IIFF) to provide training to women candidates to prepare them to be potential women logistics professionals/entrepreneurs.

Welcoming the gathering, who were majorly from FFFAI Women’s Wing, FFFAI Chairman Mr. Dushyant Mulani commended the FFFAI team especially the Women’s Wing members for celebrating this day in a unique way. “This will have a far-reaching impact on the future scenario of the logistics industry in India in respect of empowering the underprivileged women in bringing them to an emerging sector, i.e. logistics,” he said. He highlighted the endeavour of the Government in empowering the ‘Nari Shakti’ during the last 7-8 years which also benefited the logistics industry to attract women to this sector as a vibrant career option. During this period about 15-18 per cent women entrepreneurs increased in the logistics industry profession. “FFFAI is committed to facilitate this process to increase the growth of women participation up to at least 35-40 per cent in the ensuing two years,” the FFFAI Chairman asserted. He informed that FFFAI is working closely with the Central Board of Indirect Taxes and Customs (CBIC) and World Bank (WB) in this direction both at local (through 32 FFFAI Member associations) as well as national levels. He pointed out that in general, employment opportunities for graduate and post graduate levels are far more than undergraduate level. However, in the logistics sector there are huge employment opportunities for undergraduates as well. Emphasising on empowering underprivileged women, Mr. Mulani stated that FFFAI is committed to fulfil its social responsibilities.

Sharing the details of the on-job training, Ms. Chaitaly Mehta, Convenor, FFFAI Women’s Wing said that the on-jobjaya training would be on internship basis. On completion of the training the candidates will be provided with certificates from the respective companies. There is an opportunity of being employed by those companies, though it is completely their discretion. According to Ms. Chaitaly, it would be a huge advantage to the Certificate holders in applying for a job in a logistics company as they would not be treated as freshers. She also informed that the FFFAI Women’s Wing, which started its journey in 2012, with a humble beginning, with only four members, presently it has 80 members from across the country. She also highlighted various activities of the Women’s Wing through a very interesting video presentation.           

FFFAI Chairman Elect Mr. Amit Kamat; Board of Advisors Mr. Samir Shah and Mr. S. Ramakrishna; FFFAI DG Dr. Pramod Sant and FFFAI Women’s Wing Mentor Mrs. Philomena V. Pereira also addressed the gathering on the occasion.

Appreciating the efforts of FFFAI Women’s Wing Mr. Kamat expressed optimism that in the days to come women logistics entrepreneurs would place themselves in the leading positions of the country’s economy, simultaneously with other growing industry segments.

In his concluding remarks Mr. Sudip Dey, Hon. Secretary, FFFAI stated that FFFAI has stepped into a long journey not only to facilitate and strengthen the EXIM  trade of the country, but also to empower women and underprivileged sections of the society by providing employment opportunities. Conveying his best wishes to FFFAI Women’s Wing members and the women candidates engaged in the on-job training programme, Mr. Dey informed that FFFAI has already tied up with many institutions including IIM Mumbai, IIFT Kolkata and many other business colleges/institutions across the country to train both logistics industry professionals and freshers at the same time, considering the huge demand for skilled manpower. And, there will be special focus to attract women to the logistics sector which is a safe, secured and lucrative career option for them.

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