Young Acquire Skills to Find Work or Start Business
FrontLines - October 2009
By Chris Ward
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Adail Cano Marin completed an entra21-supported program in Medellin, Colombia, and now runs his own business. Programs that help young people join the labor market or become entrepreneurs have reached tens of thousands of youth throughout Latin America and the Caribbean.
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As a child selling candy in the streets of Medellin, Colombia, Adail Cano Marin seemed unlikely to become a small business owner and catalyst for local economic development.
After his father died when he was just 6 years old, Marin was forced to help provide for his family, as his mother struggled to keep her four children in school and off the city’s often dangerous streets.
Unable to afford further schooling or training after high school, Marin took whatever odd jobs he could find. His prospects changed, however, when he joined entra21, a job training program supported by USAID and the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB).
The program, along with another USAID program, Youth:Work, has helped tens of thousands of young people across the developing world to gain skills to succeed in an increasingly competitive environment.
Experts estimate there are more than 1.1 billion people between the ages of 15 and 25 worldwide. Some 85 to 90 million
of them are unable to find jobs. About 300 million are working but earn $2 a day or less.
Between 2001 and 2007, the first phase of entra21 assisted nearly 20,000 such young people in 18 countries across the Latin America and Caribbean region. A recent evaluation of the International Youth Foundation (IYF)-implemented activity indicates
that 75 percent of the first phase graduates had either been placed in a job, started their own business, or returned to school. IYF and IDB launched a second phase of the program in 2007 that will reach an additional 50,000 disadvantaged young people.
Since completing the Colombia entra21 Jovenes con Futuro (Young People with a Future) program in November 2008, Marin, now 23, has opened a small business specializing
in women’s clothing that employs three workers and has generated jobs for another 10 people as suppliers and retailers.
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With additional funding through Caterpillar, 500 young people from impoverished urban areas in Peru are gaining skills in areas such as heavy equipment operations, mechanics, and welding through the entra-21 program.
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His success is due in part to entra21, which helped him to develop technical and entrepreneurship skills along with critical life skills such as teamwork, problem solving, and communication. "Entra21 gave me the opportunity to gain a competitive skill, and taught me that it is possible to achieve the dreams that we young people have," said Marin.
IYF is incorporating its model into a new global program
called Youth:Work, which allows USAID to set up youth employability programs in many countries.
Projects have begun in Jordan, Morocco, and the Caribbean.
Youth:Work Jordan, for example, is a five-year, $30 million collaborative effort with the Jordanian government, the private sector, and NGOs. It is designed to equip out-of-work, marginalized young people in urban areas with the skills to find employment, become positive agents of change within their communities, and lead healthier lifestyles.
Each new Youth:Work project plugs into a growing
network that shares best practices. An example was an event in Washington, D.C., this May on "What Works in Youth Employability." The event drew experts from around the world to discuss how to employ disadvantaged
young people.
Other international conferences
on youth employment were recently held in Amman, Jordan, and Nairobi, Kenya, co-sponsored by USAID and the World Bank and organized by IYF. The next conference in the series will be held in Bogota, Colombia, later this year.
For more information, contact Margaret Harritt of the Bureau for Economic Growth, Agriculture, and Trade at mharritt@
usaid.gov.
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