Partners of the Americas (POA) developed and implements the “A Ganar/Vencer” program, a program that targets at-risk youth, ages 16-24, in Brazil, Ecuador and Uruguay. A Ganar/Vencer uses a soccer-based methodology to motivate and assist youth in translating sports skills and values into market-driven employment skills. The goal is to provide youth with the knowledge, skills, confidence, experience, and work history that will enable them to successfully compete in the marketplace.
Training includes market-driven employability skills, market-driven technical skills, practical experience, mentoring, and community service. A Ganar/Vencer training typically takes between seven to nine months and is implemented in three integrated phases.
- Phase 1 combines soccer field activities and examples with classroom activities to help youth develop key workplace skills such as teamwork and discipline. Information technology skills, discussions on gender and activities focusing on critical decision-making are also part of this highly interactive phase.
- Phase 2 brings these employability skills into hands-on activities to learn market-driven vocational/technical skills. Vocational areas vary by country and group, based on changing market conditions.
- Phase 3 offers youth the chance for practical experience via internships, apprenticeships or other activities. Throughout training, youth are mentored by members of the local business community and carry out community service.
The Multilateral Investment Fund of the Inter-American Development Bank provided $3.6 million in funding to start the program but required POA to raise an additional $1.2 million in cash match and $1.2 million of in-kind match. This match requirement motivated Partners to market itself as a training provider and training broker to potential employers, in return for funding. In order to do so, POA developed sponsorship packages and worked closely with potential employers. This helped them to ensure market relevance at the same time as they raised necessary funds.
In order to assure the market relevance of their programming, POA has developed sponsorship packages in conjunction with potential employers. Through the sponsorship packages, POA establishes partnerships with companies that are interested in hiring youth trained for a specific sector. In return, the companies provide funding to offset the cost of this training - in essence, hiring POA to be a training provider for youth employees. The situation is a win-win-win for all three parties: the companies secure low-cost, high-quality training for new hires; POA receives knowledge about growing employment sectors; and the youth receive training for jobs that are actually available upon graduation.
This project is also active in Brazil and Ecuador
SEEP PLP for Youth and Workforce Development
Paul Teeple
pteeple@partners.net
2005-Present
Partners of the Americas (POA) developed and implements the “A Ganar/Vencer” program, a program that targets at-risk youth, ages 16-24, in Brazil, Ecuador and Uruguay. A Ganar/Vencer uses a soccer-based methodology to motivate and assist youth in translating sports skills and values into market-driven employment skills. The goal is to provide youth with the knowledge, skills, confidence, experience, and work history that will enable them to successfully compete in the marketplace.
Training includes market-driven employability skills, market-driven technical skills, practical experience, mentoring, and community service. A Ganar/Vencer training typically takes between seven to nine months and is implemented in three integrated phases.
- Phase 1 combines soccer field activities and examples with classroom activities to help youth develop key workplace skills such as teamwork and discipline. Information technology skills, discussions on gender and activities focusing on critical decision-making are also part of this highly interactive phase.
- Phase 2 brings these employability skills into hands-on activities to learn market-driven vocational/technical skills. Vocational areas vary by country and group, based on changing market conditions.
- Phase 3 offers youth the chance for practical experience via internships, apprenticeships or other activities. Throughout training, youth are mentored by members of the local business community and carry out community service.
The Multilateral Investment Fund of the Inter-American Development Bank provided $3.6 million in funding to start the program but required POA to raise an additional $1.2 million in cash match and $1.2 million of in-kind match. This match requirement motivated Partners to market itself as a training provider and training broker to potential employers, in return for funding. In order to do so, POA developed sponsorship packages and worked closely with potential employers. This helped them to ensure market relevance at the same time as they raised necessary funds.
In order to assure the market relevance of their programming, POA has developed sponsorship packages in conjunction with potential employers. Through the sponsorship packages, POA establishes partnerships with companies that are interested in hiring youth trained for a specific sector. In return, the companies provide funding to offset the cost of this training - in essence, hiring POA to be a training provider for youth employees. The situation is a win-win-win for all three parties: the companies secure low-cost, high-quality training for new hires; POA receives knowledge about growing employment sectors; and the youth receive training for jobs that are actually available upon graduation.
This project is also active in Brazil and Uruguay
SEEP PLP for Youth and Workforce Development
Paul Teeple
pteeple@partners.net
2005-Present
Partners of the Americas (POA) developed and implements the “A Ganar/Vencer” program, a program that targets at-risk youth, ages 16-24, in Brazil, Ecuador and Uruguay. A Ganar/Vencer uses a soccer-based methodology to motivate and assist youth in translating sports skills and values into market-driven employment skills. The goal is to provide youth with the knowledge, skills, confidence, experience, and work history that will enable them to successfully compete in the marketplace.
Training includes market-driven employability skills, market-driven technical skills, practical experience, mentoring, and community service. A Ganar/Vencer training typically takes between seven to nine months and is implemented in three integrated phases.
- Phase 1 combines soccer field activities and examples with classroom activities to help youth develop key workplace skills such as teamwork and discipline. Information technology skills, discussions on gender and activities focusing on critical decision-making are also part of this highly interactive phase.
- Phase 2 brings these employability skills into hands-on activities to learn market-driven vocational/technical skills. Vocational areas vary by country and group, based on changing market conditions.
- Phase 3 offers youth the chance for practical experience via internships, apprenticeships or other activities. Throughout training, youth are mentored by members of the local business community and carry out community service.
The Multilateral Investment Fund of the Inter-American Development Bank provided $3.6 million in funding to start the program but required POA to raise an additional $1.2 million in cash match and $1.2 million of in-kind match. This match requirement motivated Partners to market itself as a training provider and training broker to potential employers, in return for funding. In order to do so, POA developed sponsorship packages and worked closely with potential employers. This helped them to ensure market relevance at the same time as they raised necessary funds.
In order to assure the market relevance of their programming, POA has developed sponsorship packages in conjunction with potential employers. Through the sponsorship packages, POA establishes partnerships with companies that are interested in hiring youth trained for a specific sector. In return, the companies provide funding to offset the cost of this training - in essence, hiring POA to be a training provider for youth employees. The situation is a win-win-win for all three parties: the companies secure low-cost, high-quality training for new hires; POA receives knowledge about growing employment sectors; and the youth receive training for jobs that are actually available upon graduation.
This project is also active in Ecuador and Uruguay
SEEP PLP for Youth and Workforce Development
Paul Teeple
pteeple@partners.net
2005-Present
Africa KidSAFE is a network of national and international organizations in Zambia working with children who are found on the street (commonly referred to as “street children”) and children who are at risk of moving to the streets as a result of social and economic pressures. The network’s 22 member organizations operate autonomously, but work together in a spirit of collaboration, with common objectives, and under a set of shared guidelines. The network covers Lusaka, Copperbelt, Central and Southern Provinces. With support of the Displaced Children and Orphans Fund and PEPFAR, Project Concern International (PCI) provides coordination, technical support, training, and limited financial and material assistance to the member organizations.
As part of its prevention strategy, the Africa KidSAFE network engages in activities that include street outreach, mobile health, reintegration, residential care, and economic empowerment initiatives. The economic empowerment approach Africa KidSAFE employs focuses on caregivers, with the intent of strengthening the households into which street children are being reintegrated. This includes, but is not limited to, economic strengthening. In target areas, community capacities also need to be strengthened regarding prevention of unnecessary family separation, the identification of child neglect and abuse, and monitoring and support for reintegration.
PCI works in collaboration with, and has provided resources to the Christian Enterprise Trust of Zambia (CETZAM), leaders in microfinance for the poor in Zambia, in order to improve access to microcredit for an estimated 2000 volunteer caregivers who receive support from PCI and/or its partner organizations in the Lusaka and Copperbelt Provinces as part of Africa KidSAFE. Caregivers assist orphans, at risk youth, and people living with HIV/AIDS, and their work is critically important to the country’s public health infrastructure. Moreover, because caregivers are volunteers, finding affordable ways to motivate and incentivize them is crucial to their success and retention within the program.
PCI has identified the lack of microcredit and business training as major impediments to the livelihood security and retention of caregivers, many of whom are widows or women of otherwise limited means, who strain under the financial burden of caring for large numbers of children and/or HIV+ friends or relatives. Most caregivers currently undertake some informal microenterprise activity or small business, and PCI recognizes that there is a tremendous unmet need for microcredit lending among these individuals. With this need in mind, Africa KidSAFE is beginning a savings-led economic empowerment initiative in October 2008.
Project Concern International
info@pcizambia.org.zm
January 2005 to September 2010
The framework considers families and communities as the foundation of an effective, scaled-up response. The framework's key strategies are as follows:
- Strengthen the capacity of families to protect and care for orphans and vulnerable children by prolonging the lives of parents and providing economic, psychosocial and other support;
- Mobilize and support community-based responses;
- Ensure access for orphans and vulnerable children to essential services, including education, health care, birth registration and others;
- Ensure that governments protect the most vulnerable children through improved policy and legislation and by channelling resources to families and communities;
- Raise awareness at all levels through advocacy and social mobilization to create a supportive environment for children and families affected by HIV/AIDS.
This guidance document has been developed as part of an internal investment review process to provide guidance to USAID country missions and both local and international implementing partners on how funds from the USAID Displaced Children and Orphans Fund will be used in the area of programming for street children.
