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Youth empowerment and youth employment are the key elements of successful social development strategies, worldwide. In order to build capacity of unemployed youth and for young people to be able to compete in the labor market, the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) launched a project “Youth Employment Generation Programme in Arab Transition Countries” in 2012 which has targeted unemployed youth aged between 18-26 at three Governorates with high poverty and unemployment rates.
The programme is financed by the Government of Japan and provides the internship opportunities in private and public entities, as well as specialized technical training from 4-6 months.
To date, this programme has provided training and internship opportunities to 75 interns, 25 coming from each governorate. Interns include high school and college graduates, as well as youth with disabilities, and they are placed in both private and State-run companies. Another 65 interns are finishing up their training and so far, one third of all interns have already received permanent job offers.
The targeted countries of the programme include Jordan, Lebanon and Iraq. Some of the graduates have decided to share their empowerment stories in order to draw more young people into the programme. Read a story told by Yahia Yousef al-Deques who graduated last December from a vocational training programme established through a UNDP youth empowerment project in partnership with Jordan Career Education Foundation (JCEF): http://www.undp.org/content/undp/en/home/presscenter/articles/2014/03/1…
The strength of the programmes such as this can be seen in the combination of vocational and life-skills coaching. This dual approach means that young Jordanians are offered continuing support through the scheme and as they look for jobs. UNDP’s overarching strategy pulls together a range of actions aimed at tackling unemployment in Jordan, where the private sector plays a key role in supporting youth from disadvantaged groups to find decent jobs.
The programme will soon be expanded from three Governorates to six which will significantly improve the problem of youth unemployment.
For more information: http://www.jo.undp.org/content/jordan/en/home/operations/projects/pover…
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