World Bank Honours India’s Chennai Food Entrepreneur

 

NEW YORK (NNN-Bernama) -- A slum boy who now owns a food industry empire in Chennai - thanks to his poverty stricken mother who sold idlis on pavements to educate him - was honoured at the World Bank youth conference for his entrepreneurship and leadership skills.

Sarath Babu Elumalai was among three youths invited from across the globe for the Bank's annual flagship event, the Global Youth Conference, to engage the broader development of community with youths around the world.

The theme of this year's conference was Youth Unemployment: Empowering Solutions through Innovation and Inclusion, Press Trust of India reported.

Convened by youth experts and advocates, the conference was webcast internally and externally with online participants from over 20 countries.

Ronan Farrow, advisor on Youth Issues to US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, addressed the participants.

Sarath Babu told PTI in Jersey City that at one time he struggled to continue his school education due to poverty. His mother who worked as a low grade servant at the State Government nutritious noon meal scheme project decided to make idlis and sell them in a pavement shop to educate her son.

Babu was admitted at BITS-PILANI for a Chemical Engineering degree and landed in the Indian Institute of Management-Ahmedabad (IIMA) later for an MBA.

Today, the 30-year-old's multi-crore Food King Restaurant and catering business has crossed Chennai and operates in Hyderabad and Jaipur as well. He now employs around 300 people mostly from the poor strata of the society.

"I was born and raised in a slum in Madipakkam in Chennai. I have two elder sisters and two younger brothers and my mother was the sole breadwinner of the family," Babu told audience at the conference.

"It was really tough for my mother to bring up five kids on her meager salary. She sold Idlis in the mornings, worked for the mid-day meal at the school during daytime and taught at the adult education programme of the Indian government, thus doing three different jobs to bring us up and educate us.

We went hungry many a days and I know the impact of hunger."

After graduating from IIM-A, Babu setup "Food King" - a food catering services in 2006 with the vision to offer employment to illiterate and semi-illiterate people and improve their standard of living.

"I put values ahead of money and power. And I have learned it the hard way, rising up from delivering idlis prepared by my mother."

In 2010, he started "Hunger Free India Foundation" with the objective of contributing in his own way to address the problem of hunger in India through various programmes.

That year, the foundation undertook a food distribution programme in 40 orphanages, senior citizens homes and special schools serving nearly 10,000 residents in the Chennai, Coimbatore, Salem, Bhavnagar and Goa areas.

This year he plans to feed 20,000 hungry stomachs.

After his speech, he was inundated with over 2000 tweets asking his advice on his novel entrepreneurship and how he overcame poverty and developed a business empire before he could turn 30.

"It took time but I replied to all of them in two days," he said.

Over 90 per cent of his staff are either school dropouts or living in abject poverty. He trains them with soft skills and various programmes before positioning them in the organisation.

At the conference, successful youth entrepreneurs shared their stories and brainstormed on how to curb unemployment.

Speakers shared the concern that many young people around the world are frustrated and voiceless and the rich resources they offer to their communities and the world remain untapped.

According to the International Labour Organisation (ILO), youths aged 15 to 24 make up a whopping 40 per cent of the globally unemployed for varied and complex reasons.

World Bank Managing Director Caroline Anstey said the mismatch between skills provided by current education systems and skills needed in the work force needs to be addressed.

Youths should assert themselves and take responsibility for their own futures through networking and self-organisation, said Branka Minic, director of Global Corporate and Government Affairs at Manpower, a world-renowned global staffing firm.

Advisor on Youth Issues to US Secretary of State, Ronan Farrow, said governments and companies should also include young people as honest partners and lauded youth who are already engaged in the political process and who push boundaries to make them heard.

A common theme among the suggested solutions was the need for a multi-faceted partnership between government ministries, the private sector, academia, and NGOs to create an environment in which youths could be considered honest partners and use their voice in policy making and problem solving. – NNN-BERNAMA