School-to-Career Programs

Ruwwad, taken from the Arabic word for “pioneers,” is a ground-breaking program created by Palestinians, for Palestinians. Its mission is to empower Palestinian youth and the adults who serve them, so that both groups can become strong local leaders and change-makers. Since 2005, Ruwwad has been planned, designed, and implemented “by youth, for youth,” with a focus on positive leadership development for young women and men ages 14 to 30.

The YES (Youth Employability Skills) Network will connect the supply and demand side of labor in Macedonia through various interventions in order to raise the quality of workers and connect them more readily to jobs.

EQuALLS2 increases access to quality basic education and livelihood skills in areas most affected by conflict and poverty in the Philippines (primarily the Muslim areas in the Mindanao island group in the south). EQuALLS2 is a large-scale project that seeks to benefit 345,000 children and youth in 37 municipalities and four cities by training 37,238 educators and school officials, building the capacity of 850 local education stakeholder groups, and expanding local education resources through public-private partnerships.

The Social Legacy Program (SLP) reaches out to youth and other vulnerable groups in the Europe and Eurasia region, giving them the tools they need to become local leaders and promote social change. Due to widespread socio-economic insecurity and a dramatic collapse in basic social services, these groups face great barriers to finding work and gaining viable skills, while the region on the whole struggles to make the transition towards market-oriented, democratic societies.

The Garissa Youth Project (G-Youth Project) aims to empower youth in Kenya make sound career and life decisions as they transition from high school to the next phase of their lives. The project is also building the capacity of local institutions and networks to sustain the much-needed services that G-Youth will provide.

The Shaqodoon program was created to provide Somali youth with greater access to training, internships, work and self-employment opportunities in order to productively engage youth and add to the stability and development of the region. Shaqodoon is Somali for “jobseekers”.

The Akazi Kanoze Youth Livelihoods Project, an EQUIP3 Associate Award, aims to develop a thriving youth livelihood support system in Rwanda to increase the prosperity of not only youth, but also the public and private institutions that support and benefit from youths’ productive engagement in Rwandan society. To achieve this goal, Akazi Kanoze will provide youth in Kigali with market-relevant life and work readiness training and support, hands-on training opportunities, and links into the employment and self-employment job market.

Prepara Ami ba Serbisu (PAS), which translates to “Preparing Us for Work,” is a workforce preparation program in Timor-Leste that assists rural youth (ages 16–30), many of whom dropped out of school and have little opportunity other than subsistence farming. These youth gain the skills and expertise needed to find self-employment or job opportunities and more promising futures. Over 1,500 men and women graduated from the program’s eight-month combination of off-the-job classroom instruction, on-the-job training, and livelihood accompaniment.

The ITEST Learning Resource Center at EDC held a convening designed to develop a theoretical framework to guide future research on youth motivation in STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics) with a particular emphasis on populations most underrepresented in the STEM workforce. Two guiding questions were the focus of the event: 1) What is currently known about motivation in STEM for underrepresented youth? 2) What can be done to cultivate new research around STEM motivation for underrepresented youth?

YouthBuild USA’s Green Initiative provides opportunities for the program’s students and graduates to pursue green careers and environmental leadership, while increasing the production of green affordable housing. EDC’s EdTech Leaders Online partnered with YouthBuild to develop a seven-week online course to engage YouthBuild instructors in readings, activities, and discussions that develop knowledge and skills to incorporate green building and other environmental concepts into their classroom curriculums.