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East African Youth Skills Development for Livelihoods - " The Data is In"

Mon, March 6, 9:45 to 11:15am, Sheraton Atlanta, Floor: 1, Capitol Center (North Tower)

Session Submission Type: Group Panel

Description of Session

With over 50% of East Africa’s population being under 15 years of age today, obtaining formal employment is an unlikely reality for a large proportion of the upcoming youth population, where national incomes are driven by the informal economy and small and medium enterprises. Using schools, teachers and existing educational systems we can augment curriculum to prepare these youth for the future. This panel shares experience and empirical evidence collected through RCT’s, third party evaluations, and field monitoring demonstrating best practices, sustainability and a significant transition from inequity toward equity for struggling youth striving toward skill development, employment and business enterprise. All three organizations re actively working for systemic change through the Government leadership and curriculum organizations.

In this panel we provide a forum to discuss field and research evidence regarding the supply side and demand side challenges that East Africa youth face in readiness for employment. We will also describe methods, techniques, and resources offered to youth while still in educational settings. Specific panel objectives include; description of the theory of change, addressing unique barriers for girls and vulnerable rural youth face, and specific data indicating best practices, lessons learned to be leverage across all organizations working to address barriers to success for youth as entrepreneurs, in the workforce, and as leaders in their communities. The panel represent unique contextually adapted programs from East Africa including Uganda, Rwanda, Kenya and Tanzania. Evidence from all three panelists includes systemic interventions, low cost models, sustainability, and positioning youth for successful livelihoods.

Theoretical Framework Employed: While each organization approaches implementation differently, all three organizations have a common framework of preparing youth to thrive in the national economy and become leaders of their communities through skill development, leadership, and entrepreneurship development. Africa Education Trust (AET) supports students, teachers and potential employers to map and identify gaps in student’s training and relevance to their future job prospects. By identifying gaps, AET is able to work with educators and professionals to develop innovative and creative approaches that smooth students transition to higher education and the work force including establishing mobile science-labs, explore e-learning and extra-curricular clubs to deliver integrated ICT and business workshops. Educate! addresses the educational inequity in Uganda and Rwanda by teaching youth to solve poverty for themselves and their communities through entrepreneurship, leadership, and workforce readiness training, business clubs, and mentorship. The models developed target specific opportunity gaps Thanks to these efforts, the programs have evidence and data substantiating outcomes and impact over the past 5 years. Asante Africa Foundation has a specific focus on lifting the rural youth skills to be comparable to urban youth knowledge use a week long intensive “ incubator” focused on leadership, personal development, job readiness and entrepreneurial skills. This program is then scaled into school clubs and communities through “Pay it Forward” Projects teaching the youth contextualization skills while to applying and transferring learnings to the broader community while creating ripple impact.

Structure of the panel: This panel will consist of the Moderator acting as the stage setting agent for the follow on panelists. Each panelist will accentuate specific attributes, best practices and evidence of impact moving from inequity toward greater equity. We will facilitate active conversations amongst the audience and the panel members.

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