Fifteen years! That’s how long Naandi has been steering the Job Factory programme. Our objective is to up-skill youth across India, inviting them to absorb and apply 21st-century skills and entrepreneurial tools to enter job markets and turn their passions into professions.
After months of collaboration between Naandi’s Job Factory teams and L’Oréal, a new programme was unveiled in December 2024 called Beauty for a Better Life. This programme is designed for young women who aspire towards hairstyling careers in the broad industry of cosmetology. Training sessions cover a broad set of skills: the technical expertise of hairdressing, along with workshops on leadership, teamwork, critical thinking, and problem-solving. Partnering with L’Oréal to deliver this curriculum offers a significant advantage: their globally recognised curriculum, refined over many years, has supported millions of people across the world to gain secure employment with flexible working hours, financial autonomy, and the opportunity to build client relationships.
Currently active in 6 states — Delhi, Haryana, Maharashtra, Punjab, Uttar Pradesh, and West Bengal — Beauty for a Better Life is supported by state governments and integrated into a total of 196 ITIs and colleges. L’Oréal’s expert beauticians have trained 12 master trainers and 160 trainers to deliver the curriculum to the 10,000 enrolled students. Each trainer and student is provided with a beauty kit containing everything they need to begin their journey into cosmetology.
Feedback from trainers has been overwhelmingly positive so far. One of the programme’s master trainers based in Maharashtra, Sapna Girish, had the following to share: “Representing Naandi and L’Oréal in ITIs for domain training has been a very humbling experience. Naandi already has a strong reputation in these institutions, so it was important to live up to that standard. But so far, delivering the programme has been hassle-free, and students have thoroughly enjoyed it. They were very happy to learn new skills and have expressed interest in more such training programmes and asked when we would be offering more. It felt great to know that we could make a difference in the lives of these girls, for whom it truly matters.”
To expand on the students’ experience, they are eager for the opportunity to earn a livelihood by working with beauty as a dynamic state of being, one that can be expressed differently with changing occasions, moods, and life stages. To them, the beauty industry offers a perfect balance of creativity and practicality. Beyond the immediate impact on all the women trained, the educational institutions hosting the programme have gotten a makeover! Training spaces have been revamped with infrastructural upgrades — new classrooms and learning spaces that are inspiring and fresh. We hope that all the women who pass through absorb and channel those qualities, and we wish them all good luck!
