Building the capacity of youth to be workforce-ready and equipped with entrepreneurial skills is a common method of addressing economic development needs in economies in which youth are the largest sector of the population and/or the sector of population that has the lowest employment rates. It is particularly important in post-conflict areas, with many children acting as heads-of-households and without the skills to provide for their families through employment or entrepreneurship. However, youth are often guided into enterprises that have low market potential, that are not meeting immediate community needs, that are socially or environmentally unsustainable, or that are replications of other businesses already run extensively throughout the community. By assessing opportunities for youth prior to their training, and incorporating an understanding of the need to assess the environmental implications of any business or industry development, and relating real growth opportunities to resource availability, these programs can truly achieve success and sustainability.
With this in mind, EcoVentures International (EVI) has been working with the PAS (Preparing Ourselves for Work) program in Timor-Leste to identify viable employment and enterprise opportunities to inform a training program for over 2,500 rural youth, ages 18-30. In the first phase of the project, EVI conducted a detailed market analysis of growing sectors of the Timorese economy and identified suitable entry points for youth. The goal is to introduce livelihood opportunities that are environmentally sustainable and build transferable skills for long-term employment and adaptability. Examples of such sectors include: bamboo, aquaculture, geotextiles, solar energy, and coconut processing, among others.
Each PAS participant will complete a year-long training program designed to build capacity in several core areas including: life skills, technical work skills, financial literacy and entrepreneurship skills. Through experiential, hands-on learning in a selected track, youth will then determine how to best utilize the financial capital they have accumulated. The research and tools EVI produced will inform the directions that program staff guide youth along each of these tracks, as well as the specific types of service opportunities they engage in during the training.
David Sturza
david@ecoventures.org
loveLife is the national HIV prevention program for youth in South Africa. Over the next two years, it is focusing on the Make Your Move Campaign, the goal of which is to change the mindsets of youth to understand that change is possible through small actions on a daily basis that can help them to protect themselves from HIV/AIDS and to make positive steps towards a socially and economically productive life.
To support the campaign, the South African Institute for Entrepreneurship (SAIE) is developing entrepreneurship and life skills tools that simulate choices that youth are faced with every day. These tools make it possible for youth to understand and discuss dilemmas and trade-offs in a safe environment, helping them to make positive choices in the real world. Part of making those positive choices relies in being able to make sound financial decisions. SAIE’s entrepreneurship curriculum addresses basic financial literacy while training youth to think about business and their life from an entrepreneurial perspective and preparing them with skills to help them to successfully achieve their personal, career, or business goals.
To implement the program, unemployed youth aged 18-25, called groundbreakers (gBs), are trained to guide a team of volunteer youth ages 12-17 through the different tools so that they utilize the entrepreneurship and decision-making skills on a day-to-day basis, and in turn can be positive leaders amongst their peers. Currently 95% of 15-year-old South African youth are HIV-negative, and loveLife hopes that by training older youths to be positive role models for their younger peers, they can help to keep them away from risky behaviors and to make healthy life choices. gBs in the program are additionally equipped with skills that can help them to gain employment or to start their own business.
Robin Coxson
robin@entrepreneurship.co.za
Location
Building the capacity of youth to be workforce-ready and equipped with entrepreneurial skills is a common method of addressing economic development needs in economies in which youth are the largest sector of the population and/or the sector of population that has the lowest employment rates. However, so often youth are guided into enterprises that have low market potential, are not meeting immediate community needs, that are socially or environmentally unsustainable, or that are replications of other businesses that are already run extensively throughout the community. By assessing opportunities for youth prior to their training, and incorporating an understanding of the need to assess the environmental implications of any business or industry development, and related real growth opportunities in regards to resource availability, these programs can truly achieve success and sustainability.
EcoVentures International (EVI) is working with Haiti’s IDEJEN Program (L'initiative pour le développement des jeunes en dehors du milieu scolaire), analyzing various sectors in Haiti’s economy for opportunities for sustainable youth business development or employment. The country-wide IDEJEN program, funded by USAID through the EQUIP III program and run by the Education Development Center, Inc. (EDC) is aiming to provide employment and business development opportunities for some 10,000 out-of-
school youth over the next two years. To support this effort, EVI is providing research and capacity-building for local implementing partners on market-relevant and sustainable businesses opportunities that can be started quickly and with high growth and employment potential.
By analyzing different formal and informal value chain sectors, EVI is identifying high-potential sectors towards which youth trained in these programs might be directed. An additional piece to this is the development of tools that youth and staff at the IDEJEN centers can use to understand value-chain methodologies and to continually analyze market opportunities, enabling them to think through how to apply skills in which the youth are trained and ensuring that the training that youth receive will continue to be relevant to the youth and to the industries in which they eventually participate.
There are a number of projects currently underway in Haiti for the indirect development of environmental enterprise, and future work will connect players in some of the stronger-opportunity sectors to leverage their work and provide industry training and apprenticeships to youth to help feed the growth. Current sectors being investigated include mini-solar, bamboo construction, biomass fuel briquetting, and sustainable aquaculture.
Kate Davenport
kate@eco-ventures.org
