Meera Shenoy

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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. It is in its second edition and a Hindi version has just been published.

Opening the very first training center in Hyderabad, Telangana Youth4Jobs was scaled up to 24 cities across 14 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.

The work has received countless accolades, including the National Award for Empowerment of Persons with Disabilities (Divyangjan)-2017 conferred by the President of India on World Disability Day (3 December 2017). Y4J won the award in the "Best Placement Agency" for their innovative work in training and placing youth with disability in corporate jobs on International day of Persons with Disabilities.

She set up Not Just Art (NJA), a digital platform created to support visual artists with disabilities in India and promote their work to a global audience of art lovers, collectors, Museums, and galleries. NJA aims to showcase the talents of the Artists and bring them into the mainstream art world, using technology to broaden the reach and create an inclusive global art community. Along the way, NJA introduces the benefits of art to children and youth with disabilities through art workshops held in schools and community centers.

Awards include:

• Asia winner MIT Innovation Inclusion award 2019
• The Manthan award
• NCPEDP-Shell Helen Keller Award 2011
• Nominated as best practice by UNDP & world bank publications
• Fetzer Foundation USA Award in the "Business & Community Category"' for 2012–13
• Winner of the 2014 Bihar Innovation Forum II Award under Skills Development category
• Invited to speak about Youth4Jobs at the prestigious TEDxBerkeley 2015
• Inducted into the Happiness Hall of Fame 2015 in a function held at Stanford, the only Indian to be inducted at the ceremony.
• Vocational Excellence Award 2015 by Rotary Club
• Winner of Access Livelihoods Asia 2015 Award. Youth4Jobs also included into the Access Livelihoods Asia Case Study Compendium
• Youth4Jobs was invited to present their case study of best practices at the UN Office in Vienna, Austria at the prestigious Zero Project Conference in 2016 and 2017.
• Youth4Jobs was the double winner of Americares SPIRIT OF HUMANITY Awards in 2016. Y4J was awarded in two categories: Livelihoods and Disability.
• National Award for Empowerment of Persons with Disabilities (Divyangjan)-2017 conferred by the President of India on World Disability Day (3 December 2017)
• NHRD SHOWCASE 2017 Award for Best Practices in HR – CREATING PEOPLE CHAMPIONS THROUGH INCLUSION @ WORKPLACE – NHRD Bangalore
• FICCI-Flo Woman Achiever award for bringing change in society and impacting lives −2018
• TV9 Nava Nakshatra Sanmanam Award 2019