Progress report for
YouthCan! Global partnership for youth employability
Achievement at a glance
In 2018, YouthCan! reached out to a total of 5,060 young people in 25 countries, equally supporting girls and boys. This is an increase of 30% from the first year of the project implementation in 2017. An additional 15 countries have joined the programme since then, enabling a scaling-up of YouthCan!. From the first two years of implementing the programme, we see evidence that YouthCan! is strongly improving our care and support for young people and their transition to independence. First results show that the self-reliance rate of young people leaving the care of SOS Children’s Villages develops 7% better in YouthCan! countries compared to the global average.In addition to face-to-face activities in 2018, the YouthLinks digital platform connects young people without adequate parental care with mentors and peers online in 10 countries, thus breaking geographical barriers. YouthLinks also developed a pilot one-to-one online mentorship programme together with Volunteer Vision and Aflatoun, where 64 young people from Peru and Nigeria were supported by mentors. 92% of the mentees reported that their self-esteem had notably increased and 95% of them said that their confidence in job interviews had significantly increased, as well.
1,300 corporate volunteers invested their time engaging with young people without adequate parental care in YouthCan! during 2018, becoming the key source of inspiration for the programme participants in 25 YouthCan! countries. With 6 global corporate partners (AkzoNobel, Allianz, Deutsche Post DHL, Johnsson & Johnsson, Siegwerk and thyssenkrupp Elevator) and over 130 local partners, YouthCan! is a global initiative that strongly builds on local ownership and engaged partners that join forces to tackle youth unemployment.
Challenges faced in implementation
Since project implementation is still in its pilot phase (2017 -2020), we are exploring the best reporting structure and processes to assess the impact of our interventions. We are also learning how we can further improve the depth and quality of the activities.Moreover, as the programme is growing in different regions of the world, we are currently building up resources in the SOS Children’s Villages regional offices to closely support the local development of programmes on the ground and to facilitate management of the programme on a global level.
Beneficiaries
YouthCan! focuses on young people without adequate parental care. For 70% of participants, YouthCan! serves as additional employability support to the services they already receive in SOS Children’s Villages family-like care or family strengthening programmes. Several countries like Costa Rica, Nigeria and Russia take YouthCan! even further by including young people without adequate parental care from the communities we serve, but that have not yet been part of SOS Children’s Villages programmes.
Half of the YouthCan! participants live in Eastern and Southern Africa, with South Africa being the strongest YouthCan! country with 27% of all participants. In the Americas, another 24% of YouthCan! participants are counted, while the regions Eastern Europe, CIS and the Baltics (EUCB), as well as Asia and Middle East and Northern Africa, add around 10% each to the number of participants. In Western Africa, Cape Verde was the first country to launch YouthCan! at the end of 2018.
Local contextualisation means that YouthCan! focuses on different age groups from region to region. While in Asia and Latin America, around half of YouthCan! participants are 18 years old or younger, Eastern and Southern Africa, as well as EUCB, report that the majority of participants are 22 years old or older.
Actions
To make a long-lasting change in young people’s lives, a multidimensional approach is key. That’s why YouthCan! combines the three programme pillars, Mentor – Train – Practice, into one holistic approach. The programme is tailor-made to the local labour market and the individual needs of each young person. It is offered in person or online by means of digital platforms.Results show that YouthCan! builds strong relationships with young participants, and keeps engaging and strengthening them in multiple ways. In 2018, young participants took part in 11.4 encounters (i.e. meetings, either face-to-face or virtual) on average across the year.
Nationally-shaped YouthCan! programmes prioritise training activities, with 60% of encounters happening in this area. Almost half of the trainings focus on life/soft skill development as the foundation for young people to meet the challenges of an ever-changing labour market. Professional skills training and career guidance resulted in the other half of encounters. Additionally, entrepreneurship training was piloted in 4 countries.
20% of all meetings and activities happened in the area of off- and online mentoring, whereas internships/ job-shadowing opportunities still have the potential to grow, currently providing 10% of all encounters.
In 2018, YouthCan! strengthened blended learning by integrating the digital platform YouthLinks to the programme in 10 countries. As a result, the digital platform supported 15% of all global YouthCan! encounters in 2018 and is now integrated in the overall project as a natural tool to facilitate learning, mentoring and exchange. We are using Workplace by Facebook for group online mentoring, as well as peer-to-peer exchange and a one-on-one online mentoring curriculum developed in cooperation with Volunteer Vision.