Life Skills Development: Empowering the Youth Volunteers of Nehru Yuva Kendra Sangathan Volunteers

India is in the midst of a youth bulge.For any country to reap the benefits of the demographic dividend, its youth have to have skills and education in order to be able to contribute to its socio-economic development and in turn raise their standard of living. Volunteerism is considered an important, and increasingly popular, mechanism for enabling young people to not only engage in social issues and contribute to sustainable human development but also their own self-development. The Nehru Yuva Kendra Sangathan (NYKS), an autonomous organization under the government is the largest network of rural youth in the country for channelizing the power of youth on the principles of voluntarism, self-help and community participation. The present study titled ‘Youth Volunteering and Youth Development: A study of Nehru Yuva Kendra Sangathan (NYKS) volunteers’ was undertaken to provide in-depth insights into the participation of youth volunteers in the activities of NYKS and the impact of those activities on the lives of youth volunteers. The scores of youth volunteers on Life Skills Assessment Scale indicated that more than three-fourth of youth sampled was having Average life skill or more. Regression Analysis of life skills on independent variables (gender, age, educational level, family income, participation years and satisfaction level) indicating that life skills of youth volunteers enhanced with their educational qualification and the satisfaction level with the work that they did as a volunteer in NYKS. NYKS is providing young people with positive experiences which enhance their strengths and capacity and which affirms them as valued contributors to their communities and shapers of their own future.