Swisscontact

Program:
Youth Learning and Microfinance Nexus
Purpose:

Demonstrate and expand a practical non-formal skills training model for out-of-school youth

Amount:
$5.6 million
Term:
Five years
Start date:
July 2011
Location:
Tanzania and Uganda

Why We Partnered

Founded in 1959 through the private business sector and universities, Swisscontact is the non-profit arm of the Swiss private sector for development cooperation. Its goal is to reduce poverty by promoting socially, ecologically, and economically sustainable development. Its flexible and adaptive skills development and financial services programs focus on youth and the empowerment of women and girls.

Swisscontact’s non-formal training model provides market-relevant skills to youth in subsistence agriculture economies in Africa and Asia between the ages of 16-25 who have never attended secondary school. The model delivers experiential entrepreneurial training through small peer Learning Groups and enables young people to create their own jobs in a short period of time. In addition to customized occupational skills, the training curriculum includes life skills such as financial literacy and the importance of saving. Swisscontact also engages the local community to support its young people by encouraging mentorship programs.

With Foundation support Swisscontact will expand its current pilot in the Lake Victoria region of Uganda and Tanzania. The project will train community-based trainers, government vocational training officials, master craftsmen, and business owners to mentor and support youth. This partnership is part of the Learning, Earning, and Saving Program, which tests and supports the development and understanding of holistic approaches for enabling economic opportunities for disadvantaged youth.

Anticipated Impact

  • Demonstrate and expand the Swisscontact non-formal training model in the Lake Victoria region of Uganda, and the Lake Victoria region of Tanzania.
  • Train 295 local resource people for sustainable mentorship and support for youth.
  • Provide 3,600 youth with targeted technical skills training in small clusters aligned with local labor market demand, and provide remedial basic education for 1,000 girls and young mothers with little or no education.
  • Provide 3,600 disadvantaged young people with entrepreneurship development, internships, and ongoing coaching during business start-up for successful transition to self-employment.