Social media meeting on the theme of education and career guidance was held by UNICEF today at Bhopal. About 50 influencers on social media participated. It was an interactive meeting where there was session on career guidance program running in government schools of Madhya Pradesh which was technically supported by UNICEF.

Anil Gulati, Communication Specialist, UNICEF facilitated the meeting and he said that our aim is to share information about the state’s career guidance efforts and how social media influencers can disseminate this information and help increase its reach.

FA Jami, Education Specialist, UNICEF’s Joint Career Guidance Program has 500 career cards in 21 domains which are being implemented in the state. He took the participants through the career portal and it was requested that these social media influencers can spread the information about this career portal to everyone using their power of social media.

He also told that there is another program Fundoo based on UReport for skill development, which has 11 micro-courses for school children. These could be accessed by children to build skills for career development.

The portals for applying for scholarships were also shared. Rekha Patidar, a teacher at Government School in BHEL shared her positive experiences of career guidance program and how it exposes the students of her school and gives them an overview of careers available in 21 domains. Ms. Onkush shared her experience with the career portal and also how she works with students to guide them to learn information about various careers.

She explained about the different career options available and how curious the students are. Influencers like Sagar Sharma, Nidhi Shukla Pandey, Neetta Manwani, Arpit Jain, Pinki Tiwari, Jyotu Dubey, Madhu Choudhary, Nidhi Rawatiya shared their experiences while growing up or as parents of children. One of the suggestions made was to include parental involvement in the career guidance program as well, so that parents could also support their children in their understanding of the same. Sujan Sarkar Monitoring officer and representatives of DIIYM (Development Initiative Igniting Young Minds) were present in the meeting.