YEFL GHANA Strategy 2020 - 2025

YEFL GHANA STRATEGY 2020 - 2024

g n i t a Cre ities n u t r oppo outh, y h t i w th u o y by !! h t u o y r o f YOUTH LEADING CHANGE

Empowering youth socially, economically and politically!

FIND MORE INFORMATION @ For more information please visit our website and social media platforms: www.yeflghana.org www.facebook.com/yeflghana

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CONTENTS

Contents 1. Introduction 4 1.1 Our Foundation and history 1.2 Mission, vision and guiding principles 1.2.3 Our Guiding Principles

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2. Frameworks and context analysis

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3.Target groups and key approaches

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2.1 Global fit 2.2 Policy frameworks 2.3 Context Analysis 2.3.1 Youth Demography 2.3.2 Youth & Transition 2.3.3 Youth Participation in Decision – Making and Political Spaces 2.3.4 Youth Employment & Entrepreneurship 2.3.5 Youth & Inequality 3.1 Our Core Target Group 3.2 Key approaches 3.3 Our Theory of Change

4. Intervention strategies, outcomes & key activities

4.1 Social empowerment intervention strategies 4.1.1 Youth Centres and Social Enterprises 4.1.2 Cultural Exchange 4.2 Political Empowerment Intervention Strategies 4.2.1 Youth Parliaments 4.2.2 Youth Networks 4.2.3 Youth Speak Up 4.2.4 Art of Change 4.3 Economic Empowerment Intervention Strategies 4.3.1 Youth Entrepreneurship: 4.3.2 Youth Employment

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INTRODUCTION

INTRODUCTION YEFL-GHANA is a vibrant youth-focused, youth managed organization empowering youth economically, politically and socially to lead the desired change deemed fit for their societies.

By empowering youth, we employ three broad approaches that guide our programming at all levels of our engagements. By approach, we employ economic empowerment, social empowerment, and political empowerment.

Action.

1.1 OUR HISTORY AND FOUNDATION Our foundation stems from our believe in youth mobilization and organizing for change which we conceived in 2005 and launched with platforms later to be popularly referred to as the Youth Forum and Youth Centre concepts. Through out our growth period we have been supported and guided by the Ghana Developing Communities Association (GDCA) and Ghana Ven-

skab (GV). We formalized our structures and registered with the statutory bodies as Youth Empowerment for Life (YEFL) in 2010. In 2019, we developed a new strategy for our youth programming which included rebranding and thus resulted in a change in name from Youth Empowerment for Life to “YEFL Ghana”.

Our youth strategy is anchored on the need to mobilize/organize youth, build their agency to be in charge and make them productive for themselves and their communities through the Youth Centres. Our strategy has the tagline, “creating opportunities with youth, by youth and for youth”

1.2 OUR GUIDING PRINCIPLES At YEFL, we are guided by the following:

LEARNING BY DOING

At YEFL, we believe in experiential learning.

Learning is an unending process and only becomes effective when put into action. Young

OUR VISION A transformed youth leading change

OUR MISSION Empower youth through engagements, networks, information sharing and capacity building to lead change

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INTRODUCTION

people are enthusiastic and are willing to get their hands “muddy”. To this end, we will offer the youth the wherewithal to “learn and unlearn” and eventually become skillful at what they do. They will be supported to have hands-on experience and the opportunity to experiment with models, while learning with guidance from experts and peers.

and working towards tackling its issues. This opportunity builds them for the future and enables them to identify and strengthen their career trajectories. This is done through our Youth Centres and at the organizational level volunteering as board members.

PEER TO PEER LEARNING

At YEFL, we acknowledge youth competencies in articulating their concerns when their voices and abilities to engage are enhanced and the relevant tools and platforms provided. We believe that youth involvement in civic engagements and debates is an empowerment process that facilitates their active and meaningful participation and influence in decision – making processes at the local to the national levels through creative dialogue for improved service delivery and the purposes of accountability. This will be youth – designed, youth-led dialogue platforms to shape public discourse.

We will support them to initiate dialogue and campaigns in a way that is both meaningful and relevant to them.

For YEFL-GHANA, learning with peers sets young people free to co-create, innovate, become skillful at what they do and lead their peers with confidence and with a sense of purpose, and to ensure that they pass it on to others. YEFL can support this process through the Youth Centres and reinforcement of the leadership capacities of the youth to lead.

NETWORKING AND PARTNERSHIPS

At YEFL, we believe in building collaborations and partnerships with youth organizations and networks, mobilizing them for collective action and policy influence. We will continue to coordinate and support the Youth CSOs platform, the district, and regional youth networks and the alliance of youth entrepreneurs.

PARTICIPATION

“Participate - do not spectate” is a buzz word at YEFL and we believe that when young people are actively participating in issues that affect them and their communities, they will be more productive as they build their social, economic and political capitals in readiness to lead change as transformed youth. We will realize this by creating spaces and opportunities for youth participation in businesses and decision-making processes. This will be done through the Youth Parliaments, Youth Speak Up, Youth Networks, Youth Rallies/Movements and Youth Entrepreneurship interventions at the Youth Centres (see more in section 4 on intervention strategies).

VOLUNTEERISM

At YEFL, we nurture the youth through volunteerism to learn to have a sense of community

ADVOCACY AND CIVIC ENGAGEMENTS

SAFEGUARDING

At YEFL, we are committed to protecting the fundamental human rights of the youth, occasioning investigations when and where there are violations through established mechanisms, policies and practices. This will be done to guarantee a safe and enabling environment for youth active representation in the social, economic and political change processes.

COUNSELING FOR CAPABILITIES

At YEFL, we recognize counseling as the process of systematically and methodically guiding, coaching and mentoring unemployed young people, out of school, dropped out and in school to harness their potential for community and self-development. This we will support them through Youth Centres and Youth Entrepreneurship.

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CONTEXT

2. FRAMEWORKS AND CONTEXT ANALYSIS 2.1 GLOBAL FIT

Globally, our YEFL youth strategy aligns itself with the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development and mobilizing to achieve the SDGs which emphasize inclusive development that “leaves no one behind.” The 17 Goals crystalize the linkage between governance and better development outcomes, Goal 16: Promote peaceful and inclusive societies for sustainable development, provide access to justice for all and build effective, accountable and inclusive institutions at all levels. We believe that this presents us and the youth the opportunity to contribute to achieving target 16.5 and 16. Goal 8 to promote sustained, inclusive and sustainable economic growth, full and productive employment and decent work for all by specifically addressing targets 8.5 of the SDGs to achieve full and productive employment and decent work for all women and men, including for young people and persons with disabilities, and equal pay for work of equal value and target 8.6 to substantially reduce the proportion of youth not in employment, education or training.

2.2 POLICY FRAMEWORKS

The strategy is developed in context with national and international Youth Policy frameworks such as the Ghana National Youth Policy, the Local Government Act, the Youth Employment Agency Act, the African Youth Charter, National Youth Authority Act, National Budget Policy Statements, the Ghana Beyond Aid Charter, the National Entrepreneurship Policy, the AU Agenda 2063, Action Plan of the Office of the AU Youth Envoy, the World Programme of Action for Youth (WPAY), the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), the Global Initiative on Decent Jobs for Youth, the Global Strategy for Women’s, Children and Adolescent’s Health, the Agenda 2030 and the Education 2030 Framework for Action.

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2.3 CONTEXT ANALYSIS 2.3.1 YOUTH DEMOGRAPHY The youth (15 – 24 years) constitute 18.63% of Ghana’s population with 91.32% literacy rate in Africa and about 60% of the country’s voter population. 50.3% of the youth population are females with an 89.86% literacy rate in Africa.

(World Bank, 2018; GSS, 2019)

2.3.2 YOUTH TRANSITION

Youth transition has remained complex and drawn out making it difficult for youth to transit from one phase to the other. Instead of transitioning, most of the youth are trapped in a “waithood” (being stuck in the process of transiting from dependence to independence).

This period of “waithood” is perpetuated by culture and tradition, family, religion, inequality and political influence, etc.

Notably, youth are most likely to be socially, politically and economically excluded and feel left behind which makes their transitioning difficult.

2.3.3 YOUTH PARTICIPATION IN DECISION–MAKING AND POLITICAL SPACES Participation refers to the broad set of opportunities citizens have to influence (and change) decisions in the public sphere. The participation of youth in the socio-economic and political trajectory of their communities is fundamental to fostering inclusivity and ownership of policies and initiatives as recognized by the World Programme of Action for Youth (WPAY) and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the Convention on the Rights of the Child.

Participation enhances youth agency by building and strengthening their social and human

CONTEXT

capital, developing skills, boosting confidence and self – esteem and increasing the awareness of their rights (Rural Development Report, 2019).

It is an enabler to channeling youth voices on issues that are relevant and meaningful to them and ultimately improves the delivery of results of interventions and initiatives that involve them.

2.3.4 YOUTH EMPLOYMENT & ENTREPRENEURSHIP

The employment rate of the youth in Ghana remains a significant issue affecting the growth of the nation and a threat to the future of the country. Recent improvements in Ghana’s economic growth since 2001 have not translated adequately into employment. Evidence indicates that there has been an increasing trend towards the expansion of the urban informal sector and a decline in opportunities for productive employment in the formal sector. Consequently, unemployment among the economically active population is still high (National Employment Policy, 2014).

With the mounting unemployment rate in Ghana, entrepreneurial initiatives are presently high on the country’s national agenda, in the hope that they will provide alternative channels of employment. To this end, YEFL’s Entrepreneurial Bootcamp and the National Entrepreneurship and Innovation Plan (an establishment of government) seek to enable entrepreneurs, empower innovation and accelerate job creation for Ghana’s teeming unemployed youth.

2.3.5 YOUTH & INEQUALITY

Inequality lens on youth in Ghana is a gap yet to be well documented. While inequality often focuses on economic inequality, however, this attempts to explore the linkage in existing inequality gaps in Ghana to the youth.

in Ghana, inequality is evident in educational outcomes and tends to favor young males over females, urban over rural. Whilst just under half of BECE students that qualify for SHS nationally, almost 2 in every 3 students qualify in the best performing region (Greater Accra), whilst only 1 in 4 students qualify for SHS in the poorest performing region (Upper East) (MoEM&E unit, 2011). This sets the stage for regional disparities among young people in Ghana.

Young people in disadvantaged areas (especially in rural northern Ghana) continue to miss out on the political and economic growth of the country due to the widening gap in income between the wealthy and the poor. Inequality also manifests in the political representation and appointment and tends to favor urban over rural, southern over northern and ultimately shrinking out a significant number of the youth.

Creating opportunities with youth, by youth for youth!!

It is worth noting that Ghana is becoming an increasingly unequal country where the benefits of economic growth and poverty reduction are not equally distributed across the nation (UNICEF, inequality paper, 2014). Among young people

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TARGET GROUP

3. TARGET GROUPS AND KEY APPROACHES 3.1 OUR CORE TARGET GROUP

SOCIAL EMPOWERMENT

Youth according to the national youth policy of Ghana in line with the African Union (AU), are persons between the ages of 15 and 35.

But for this strategy and statistical purposes of monitoring, evaluation and impact assessment, YEFL-GHANA primarily will work with existing youth groups as well as individuals with special focus on vulnerable and/or unemployed youth that have potential to influence public discourse, improve their wellbeing and can demonstrate their interest and commitment to engaging duty bearers and institutions in constructive dialogue.

With this concept the youth are empowered using, through a learning by doing approach, networking, peer to peer learning and youthled mobilization on issues. The target groups for social mobilization are literate and non-literate youth, who are mobilized and trained to strengthen their capacities and governance structure to advocate for community development and participate in decision making at various levels in the society within and beyond.

Key to this approach is the Youth Center Concept (See section 4.1), that are platforms for youth organization and mobilization.

Our secondary target are young people between the ages of 26 and 35 and children and adolescents who are between the ages of 10 – 19 according to the UN on one hand and children who are under 18 according to the UN convention on the rights of the child on the other .

POLITICAL EMPOWERMENT

3.2 YOUTH EMPOWERMENT KEY APPROACHES Youth Empowerment GOAL

Overall, our empowerment process will result in a critical mass of young people who are active citizens with leadership and networks demanding their rights and interest, creating enterprises and participating in decision– making processes.

The key areas of priority have been influenced by the three broad empowerment approaches of economic, social and political strategies employed by YEFL-GHANA to deliver our program/ projects.

It has the objective of nurturing young people to have leadership capacity to take on leadership positions and participate in democratic processes at all levels. Furthermore, the youth are empowered to demand accountability from duty bearers as exhibiting young people’s civic responsibility to self and society are key in politically empowering youth.

ECONOMIC EMPOWERMENT

Our goal is to develop supportive, sustainable and successful rural social enterprises to promote a one-stop entrepreneurship program by building capacities, creating economic opportunities and creating an enabling environment to inspire youth in rural and underserved communities to startup businesses through the provisioning of entrepreneurial skills development, business mentoring and advisory, networking, and marketing support services.

Already, there exist some spaces that foster innovation and entrepreneurship in the country, but these spaces do not reach a large number

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KEY APPROACHES

of rural-based youth as they are only established in urban communities.

3.3 YEFL GHANA’s THEORY OF CHANGE

With economic empowerment the objective is to facilitate the creation of self-employment among young people by igniting their entrepreneurial mindset, creating an enabling start-up environment and establishing linkages for the purposes of advocacy and to access and participate in existing economic opportunities. This will be done through entrepreneurial skills training, information sharing, establishing linkages to existing business support opportunities, networks and creating rural entrepreneurship hubs.

The 3 key intervention areas are interlinked and utilised in YEFL Ghana’s projects and programs. They also guide our theory of change that focus on four main areas and outcomes under the 3 intervention areas.

Evidence-based advocacy for favorable economic policies related to youth economic development is a key component for YEFL-GHANA and the youth and will be carried out in collaboration with relevant youth networks and key stakeholders.

The overall goal is: EMPOWER YOUTH SOCIALLY, ECONOMICALLY AND POLITICALLY TO BE ACTIVE CITIZENS WHO DEMAND THEIR RIGHTS, CREATE JOBS AND ENGAGE IN DECISION-MAKING PROCESSES

The intended overall outcomes are: 1. Youth advance their rights and interests at local, national and international level 2. Youth have voice and space to engage duty bearers and address injustices 3. Youth have capacity to start up businesses in an enabling environment 4. Youth have formed strong networks and partnerships for collective social change The Theory of Change is illustrated on page 11.

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EMPOWER YOUTH SOCIALLY, ECONOMICALLY AND POLITICALLY TO BE ACTIVE CITIZENS WHO DEMAND THEIR RIGHTS, CREATE JOBS AND ENGAGE IN DECISION-MAKING PROCESSES

Youth advance their rights and interests at local, national and international level

Support youth to develop their confidence and build and strenghten their skills in civic engagement, decision making, critical thinking and effective communication and advocacy

YOUTH POLITICAL ACTION AND ACCOUNTABILITY

Limited spaces for participation in decision-making

Youth have voice and space to engage duty bearers and address injustices

Youth have capacity to start up businesses in an enabling environment

Youth have formed strong networks and partnerships for collective social change

Support youth with communicative capacity to advocate for change, and be heard by both state and non-state actors

Support youth to start up their own businesses through entrepreneurship training and by establishing a supportive environment for startups and innovation

Support youth to establish strong youth organizations that increase their opportunities to co-create, learn and act together to influence their communities

YOUTH ENTREPRENEURSHIP

YOUTH ORGANIZING FOR CHANGE

Very high youth under - and unemployment

Limited capacity to organize and mobilize

YOUTH SPEAK UP

Limited space and skills to speak up on issues

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STRATEGIES

4. INTERVENTION STRATEGIES, OUTCOMES AND KEY ACTIVITIES YEFL-Ghana’s key intervention strategies are as mentioned structured around social, political and economic empowerment of youth in Northern Ghana. In the following the objectives, outcomes, key intervention strategies and activities are outlined.

4.1 SOCIAL EMPOWERMENT INTERVENTION STRATEGIES

This strategy is the driving force of YEFL GHANA’s existence and mandate. The strategy focuses on mobilizing and organizing youth by facilitating their physical interaction that promotes learning by doing, peer to peer engagements, information sharing that activates active civic engagements between young people and their respective societies. We realize this through the Youth Centres running as social enterprises and as platforms for youth organizing for change!

Objective: Youth have the capacity to co-create, learn and act together to influence change in their communities.

4.1.1 YOUTH ORGANIZING FOR CHANGE - YOUTH HUBS

YEFL-Ghana works with Youth Centers in Northern Region where young people are mobilized and have their agencies build for self empowerment and community development… (need a description of what it is and we can use the graphic illustration here as well) Our goal is to transform the Youth Centers into Youth Hubs that serve as physical spaces that ignite a network of young change-makers mobilized around specific issues and interests, where youth can

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feel free to engage, create and collaborate working to improve their communities and build their self-confidence. This will be driven by our Youth Peer-Led Transformation Model.

This will promote learning by doing, information sharing, peer to peer engagements, networking, social movements, alliance and coalition building for socialization, responding to emerging needs and pressing issues.

The Youth Centers need to be self-run and independent spaces for youth in the districts to meet and access different services and opportunities. The vision is that the Youth Centres will have a pool of products and services that they can offer to youth in the districts and that they will be able to fund and run these services from their revenue generated. The services and products will benefit the youth of the district and ensure continued social, economic and political development opportunities. So as a sustainability strategy, the Youth Centres will be supported to develop the Social Enterprise concept and run as social enterprises.

4.1.2 CULTURAL EXCHANGE

Culture defines our existence, to this end, we foster a conducive environment that breaks cultural barriers, clichés, and stereotypes by learning and unlearning with others. We call our cultural experience “A bridge to Practice and Learning.” In this regard, we bring together young people from different backgrounds to interact, share ideas and have fun. We offer a wide range of cultural varieties/platforms for cross-learning that bridges the gap between theory and practice. We have as examples facilitated cultural youth rallies between Danish high school youth and JHS students in several districts.

YEFL’s YOUTH CENTER STRATEGY

YOUTH ENTREPRENEURSHIP

YOUTH POLITICAL ACTION AND ACCOUNTABILITY

YOUTH SPEAK UP!

SOCIAL ACTIVITIES

STUDY CLUBS

THE ART OF CHANGE

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STRATEGIES

Expected Outcomes: 1. Youth have formed strong alliances, networks, coalitions and build partnerships for collective social change.

2. Youth are effective in mobilizing themselves for civic engagements.

3. Youth have the capacity to shape public discourse through collective action and leadership.

Key activities: •

• • • •

Support and strengthen networks, alliances, and coalitions to represent youth issues (e.g. in General Assembly meetings, MTDPs, etc.).

Facilitate the creation of an environment that fosters youth organizing, socializing and volunteering.

Facilitate the creation of an enabling environment for the discovery and promotion of highly creative young people.

Facilitate young people to become leaders driving change at all levels of development Build youth capacities in civic engagement and advocacy.

4.2 POLITICAL EMPOWERMENT INTERVENTION STRATEGIES The core of the political strategy is to build capacities and link to opportunities that enhance young people’s ability to participate in decision-making processes, take up leadership roles, be accountable as well as demand for accountability from duty bearers. This is further broken down below

Young people are marginalized when it comes to political participation and activism and largely remain at the periphery of policy development and planning and at worse without a voice.

However, there is an increasing demand from the youth who want to have direct engagement

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with local governance institutions for improved delivery of services in their respective communities.

Our aim is to ensure that young people are equipped with the skills, tools, platforms, and capacity to participate and influence significantly the policy processes and demand for accountable and transparent governance from duty bearers from the local to national levels. We want to see youth as indispensable stakeholders who are influencing public policy decisions in a supportive youth development environment.

Objective: Young people have voice and platforms to mobilize youth and to engage duty bearers to address injustices 4.2.1 YOUTH PARLIAMENTS:

The Youth Parliament is a youth friendly accountability and participation platform initiated by young people in the Northern Region of Ghana. This product seeks to create conditions that will enable equal and active participation of both young females and males including persons with disabilities in the governance processes at the community and district levels whiles demanding accountability and responsiveness of duty bearers.

The Youth Parliament concept is also integrated with our Youth Speak Up concept to ensure that the voices of marginalized young people can be amplified and heard while bridging the information gap that exists between the adult dominated society and the youth.

4.2.2 YOUTH SPEAK UP:

Youth voices matter and therefore must be promoted to be heard on different creative platforms such as social media, radio, television and through arts. To this end, the youth is being facilitated to have their capacities build and strengthened to leverage youth issues on

STRATEGIES

radio, social media and creative arts. Using media and communication engages duty bearers and holds them accountable while promoting debate and awareness in the community..

We want young people to use media, arts, and communication creatively to mobilize other youth to speak up on issues that bother them and addressing injustices effectively with confidence and passion. We will support them with the platforms and opportunities that will enable them to learn to use communication tools and civic engagement skills, building the self – efficacy to advocate for change and be heard by both state and non – state actors.

4.2.3 YOUTH NETWORKS:

Youth mobilization and networking for collective action is critical to forming a socia movement.

This will be realized with the networks of youth groups and individuals relative to issues. We want to tool and capacitate young people and create for them an enabling environment to mobilize others for collective action with duty bearers and to demand accountability with an emphasis on educational accountability and youth representation in decision – making processes with the local assemblies.

4.2.4 ART OF CHANGE:

The youth have a responsibility to hold authorities accountable and lead address issues that affect them and their society. Art has always been a powerful tool for advocacy, innovation, and creation since the beginning of time and even more so in this modern era where young people have become the silent majority. The new media bring new possibilities for creating and not least communicating your art to a wider public and thus use art to inspire debate, reflection and change.

Many examples can be cited from events in Ghana’s recent past about young creatives using their art works to cause one kind of change or another. It is in light of this inspiring evidence that the Art of Change product seeks to support

young artists in Ghana to use art strategically to promote change and also create new collaborations between young artists in North and South Ghana to bridge the geographic divide and address inequalities united. YEFL works with different creatives all over Ghana in pursuit of this, facilitates art workshops for youth and holds festivals and creative workshops.

Expected Outcomes:

1. Youth demands/ensure accountability at the local and international levels 2. Youth are actively involved in platforms, voicing their concerns and interests 3. Youth participation increases in local governance decision – making processes 4. Youth use their to voice to hold duty bearers accountable

Key activities: • •

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• • •

•

Build youth capacities to enable them to participate and influence decision – making processes at local and national levels Facilitate youth to create platforms to raise debates and have hands-on experience on local and national level decision making (Youth Parliaments, development debates, etc.)

Develop the skills and capacities of young people to demand accountability from duty bearers. (e.g. budget tracking, scorecard methodology, monitoring of capital monitoring projects) Support youth participation in seminars, forums, and conferences at local, national and global levels.

Build youth capacities in citizen journalism, use of media and arts.

Facilitate youth citizen journalists’ access to platforms (i.e. virtual and physical) to amplify their voices in participatory governance from local to national.

Facilitate collaboration, mapping, capacity building, mobility and public presentations of artists (photographers, filmmakers, musicians, sculptors, painters, etc.)

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STRATEGIES

4.3 ECONOMIC EMPOWERMENT INTERVENTION STRATEGIES As mentioned broadly under the economic empowerment, the key focus under this strategy is to facilitate the creation of self-employment among young people by igniting their entrepreneurial mindset, creating an enabling start-up environment and establishing linkages for the purposes of advocacy and to access and participate in existing economic opportunities. This will be done through entrepreneurial skills training, information sharing, establishing linkages to existing business support opportunities, networks and creating rural entrepreneurship hubs.

Objective: Youth have the capacity to start – up their own businesses in an enabling environment 4.3.1 YOUTH ENTREPRENEURSHIP:

With reference to the SDGs in our global fit, our entrepreneurship trainings will equip young people - especially young women - with skills and competencies to start up their own businesses. Our main approach is the Entrepreneurship Bootcamp Model which is a time-tested approach to training young entrepreneurs in the rural communities of the Northern Region of Ghana. The participants learn about opportunity recognition, idea generation, partnership building, business planning, branding and marketing, and running their own businesses, including soft skills such as a sense of initiative, creativity, mentoring and teamwork. These skills and competencies help them to think entrepreneurial and start their businesses.

4.3.2 YOUTH EMPLOYMENT

Youth unemployment is high which constitutes a major socio-economic challenge in Ghana.

About 48% of the youth are unemployed ac-

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cording to the World Bank. Evidence of what works with our entrepreneurship model is used to engage government and other actors in the employment landscape to employ and/or create opportunities for youth. Also,conducting relevant research into diverse youth employment themes will form a key part of the employment strategy.

Young people need to be ready for the world of work or to be able to create their jobs. They, therefore, require some fundamental life skills which we will provide here by working with the youth, government and the private sectors to provide them with the skills set to become employable. An example has been the YouthLed Initiatives for Employment (YOUTH LIFE) implemented in partnership with CRS. Advocacy that will create an enabling environment to make young enterprises thrive, will be conducted with networks of entrepreneurs from our target beneficiaries known as the Alliance of Young Entrepreneurs (AYE) and to consciously link them with the Ghana Chamber of Young Entrepreneurs for regional and national level advocacy. We will facilitate youth to advocate for an enabling environment (eg. Financial inclusion, support systems and favorable policy regimes for young entrepreneurs) in the entrepreneurship ecosystem in partnership with others.

Expected Outcomes: 1. Youth start-up and sustain their businesses and have increased household income.

2. Youth generate their resources for start-up and business development.

3. Youth have mentors from their environment who support the entrepreneurs in their business development.

4. Youth have a collective and enhanced voice in the entrepreneurship policy processes.

STRATEGIES

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Key activities: • • •

Provide youth with entrepreneurship and life skills Bootcamp training Provide training and setting up VSLAs for youth entrepreneurs Facilitate the formation of Alliance of Youth Entrepreneurs (AYE) to mobilize youth entrepreneurs in the region for collective action on issues that affect them.

• •

Link AYE to other networks of entrepreneurs and the media including the CJs for knowledge sharing, networking, and inspiration as well as push for policy changes for young entrepreneurs.

Support AYE to participate in entrepreneurship conferences for knowledge sharing and inspiration.

Provide a network for mentoring and career guidance

Want to learn more?

Read and get smarter On our website YEFLGHANA.ORG you can find a best practive publication on a innovative and succesful project Youth Speak Up and learn who youth use media to be changemakers

Be enterprising!

On yeflghana.org you can find our Entrepreneurship Manual that can help you to develop young entrepreneurs that change their own and others’ lives.

Watch and learn

On our Facebook page and Youtube channel you can find videos about our young entrepreneurs, see how young artists use street art or learn a little more about our organisation

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WHERE WE WORK

AFRICA GHANA TAMALE HEAD QUARTER

h t u Yo g n i d lea ! ! e g n a ch YEFLGHANA.ORG

w w w .y e fl g h

a n a .o rg