Royal Palace of United Kingdom, Buckingham Palace, and prestigious red carpet event The Prince’s Trust Awards have been witness to the extraordinary transformation story of Nilam from Bhandup in Mumbai who received the Prince’s Trust Global Award. The Prince’s Trust Awards, an annual event held at The London Palladium, recognizes the outstanding achievements of young people supported through programmes at The Trust. For the first time, a Global Award has been presented to two young people on programmes with the Trust’s international partners.
Nilam was the only young person from India to be nominated for the prestigious award. Magic Bus India Foundation is a non-profit organization helping millions of children and young people like Nilam, in India move out of poverty by gaining life skills and employability skills. They collaborate with Prince’s Trust International on the Get Into programme; an employability programme aimed at bridging the gap between education and employment for young people. Nilam was a participant on the Get Into programme in Mumbai and her achievements on it and afterwards have been honoured by the Prince’s Trust Global Award. The Prince’s Trust Global Award recognizes the life-changing, sustainable and inspirational journeys of young people from across the globe supported by The Prince’s Trust Group and its international partners like Magic Bus India Foundation. Nilam received her award from internationally acclaimed musician Tinie Tempah and spoke with The Prince of Wales about her journey, in front of an audience of 2500 people.
Earlier, on the evening of 12th March, Nilam attended a dinner hosted by the Prince of Wales at Buckingham Palace where she shared her story with guests present. Nilam Tambe (22) lives in a small one-room dwelling with a kitchen, toilet and shared sleeping area in Bhavani Nagar, a slum in Bhandup. Her father, a laborer earns his daily wages working at a construction site to provide for the entire family. To ensure her younger siblings stay in school, Nilam wanted to share the financial burden with her father. After completing her graduation in Commerce, she looked for a job. However, she lacked the right employability skills and did not have the knowledge of interview processes or how to successfully pass an interview. She struggled to get a job.
Nilam then heard from a friend about the Get Into programme by Magic Bus and Prince’s Trust International and decided to go to the centre to find out more. After enrolling on the programme, she gained work readiness skills and life skills as well as personal development skills. She also learnt basic IT and spoken English and financial literacy. She experienced job application and interview related sessions and pre and post placement preparation. Nilam threw herself into the programme with complete dedication to learn as much as she could and develop as many skills. Her interpersonal skills and confidence began to flourish over the course of the programme. This landed her a job as a Supervisor working with children at an edutainment theme park, with a monthly salary. The experience of teaching and mentoring children has further instilled confidence in Nilam and now she wants to pursue teaching as a profession.
Mr. Jayant Rastogi, Global CEO, Magic Bus, highlighting the importance of this recognition to Nilam, “Nilam shows us how despite the difficulties we face growing up, perseverance can help us excel and make the most of an opportunity. We are so thankful to Prince Trust International for recognising and honouring the efforts of such extraordinary young people that will help motivate many more children and young people like Nilam. Working with Prince’s Trust International on the Get into programme, we are ensuring young people like Nilam complete their education, delay their age of marriage, and have the right employability skills to get a job in the organized sector, becoming economically self-reliant, tax paying citizens of India. We are enabling first generation salary earners in the poorest of communities in the remotest parts of India. We are so grateful to all our partners who have helped us transform over a million children and young people since 1999.”
Expressing her gratitude to Magic Bus, Nilam said, “Joining the Get Into programme has been a life changing experience for me. Earlier I had no direction but Magic Bus mentored me and helped me learn life skills and gave me the right training that I can now use in my work and personal life. The best part is that I have successfully achieved my dream, something, which would have taken a very long time to do, without this programme. I am now supporting my father financially. Thank you so much to Magic Bus and to Prince’s Trust International.”
Magic Bus equips children and young people in the age group of 12 to 18+ with the skills and knowledge they need to grow up and move out of poverty. Children on the Magic Bus Childhood to Livelihood programme impart life skills that help them successfully fend off destabilizers such as child marriage and child labour. Through various sports activity-based sessions, they are taught life skills such as teamwork, learning to learn, communications, problem-solving and managing self, which help them to complete their secondary education and go on to have secure careers in the organized sector helping them aspire to a future that is poverty free.
The “Prince’s Trust Global” Award recognizes the varying challenges young people face around the world and celebrates the journey of a young person on a Prince’s Trust Group programme against this backdrop. Each young person put forward for this award has gone on an extraordinary journey to realize their potential. The challenges young people face around the world is many and varying. This award goes to two individuals whose experience has gone above and beyond in being life-changing, sustainable and inspirational. Nilam from India is the joint winner of this Prince’s Trust Global Award.