The ability to earn money has become crucial to life in a highly monetized world. The competition for jobs has become quite intense and finding a job is becoming harder day by day. Entrepreneurship or ability to set up one’s own business and earn money is one way out of the cycle of unemployment and under-employment.
To impart skills in production of goods and services as well as money management skills, Don Bosco College of Agriculture, Sulcorna, Quepem has come up with an initiative of ‘Earn While You Learn’ (EWYL) to help the students learn entrepreneurship hands-on-the-job. This learning programme includes activities that are agri-based such as fruit processing (chips, jams, pickles, squashes, marmalades, etc), dairy products (curd, lassi, paneer, kulfi, shrikhand), biofertilizer production, panchgavya ,mushroom cultivation, seed production, sugarcane nursery establishment, fodder production, biological and organic pest control, and lot more. The students have started marketing the dairy products at on campus events as well as through shops in the neighbourhood. The consumer feedback is positive and a boost to the student entrepreneurs. The EWYL program is building self-reliance and important skills through the experience.
Earning money while learning is also building valuable work experience, where job markets tend to favour experience over education. The constructive work now will develop a healthy employment transition to adulthood. This will help them feel more independent and develop a sense of responsibility as an adult.
Liza Pinheiro
TY BSc Agri, DBCA
