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
Although Afghanistan has seen gains in education, health care provision and economic growth in recent years, most of its people continue to struggle economically. Furthermore, the ongoing conflict, the legacy of the Taliban, and decades of war have left the country with a substantially under-educated and under-trained workforce. Apprenticeships are one of the most common approaches to vocational training in Afghanistan. While valuable for youth skill building, the quality of apprenticeships varies greatly, with some apprenticeships causing youth to forego their formal education, put themselves at risk of physical injury or become stuck in low-wage jobs over the long term. To improve the quality of informal apprenticeships, and thus support the development of a workforce that will more fully contribute to Afghanistan’s economic growth, AED and MEDA are collaborating on the Afghanistan Secure Futures (ASF) project. ASF is one of five initiatives under the AED STRIVE Program exploring effective means of reducing the vulnerability of children and youth through economic strengthening.
ASF operates on the hypothesis that growing businesses offer greater opportunities for apprentices to learn a wider range of marketable skills. By linking small businesses to larger market players, business associations, and financial service providers, the project helps businesses to improve both the quality and quantity of their work by:
- helping small and micro-businesses in the Afghan construction industry access the financial services, skills and information they need to grow their businesses;
- working with business owners to increase their appreciation of workplace safety measures and their awareness of the value of enabling apprentices to remain in school; and
- increasing educational opportunities for apprentices by assisting local organizations in providing supplemental education to apprentices.
Together, these activities provide working youth with a richer apprenticeship experience that increases their current income and future employability, leading to a more secure future for the youth of Afghanistan.
Jennifer Denomy
MEDA
Suite I-106, 155 Frobisher Drive
Waterloo, Ontario, N2V 2E1
jdenomy@meda.org
Naseem Akhtar
AED
Global Education Center
1825 Connecticut Avenue, NW
Washington, DC 20009
nakhtar@aed.org
September 2008 to August 2011
