Radio Miraya
2707: MBS. USAID Youth Empowerment Program
The USAID Youth Empowerment is a program that aims to improve access to knowledge and functional skills for more than 25,000 youth, aged between 15 to 29, and this is happening in five states and 13 counties so that youth can lead healthier lives, generate an income and contribute to socio cohesion of their communities. Now to talk about this, I'm joined by USAID South Sudan Acting Deputy Mission Director Darren Manning, Basic Education Specialist USAID Youth Empowerment activity, Dennis Dukou, and I have USAID Youth Empowerment activity participant, Abing Madood, plus we have Daniel Wanney, who also joins us in the studio. Good morning, welcome to the show, and it's good to have you. Good morning. Right, and I'll start with you Darren, I'll just introduce for us what this program is all about. Yes, sir, thank you. I want to just give an overview of USAID's work worldwide because we do, the Youth Empowerment activity is an example of our investment in youth in South Sudan, in the development of vocational skills, as well as job training and education, and this is something that we do all over the world, and we say USAID's support in any country that we work in is not a substitute for the role that the government plays, and here the transitional government really does play a role, and has a responsibility to invest in education, to invest in the youth of this country, and to use, therefore, to use the revenues it generates for these purposes, and so that means paying salaries, that's constructing schools, it's the whole system, and only through this method will there really be a successful, strong, vibrant education system in South Sudan. But I would like to turn it over to my colleague Daniel Wani. Right, and before you turn it over to Daniel Wani, just tell us how many schools have you been involved with, and most especially in San Diego, USAID and in other states. That is why I have Daniel with me who can probably talk a little bit more about those details if that's all right. All right, that's fine. Since you're just giving an overview, I thought that would be a follow-up question for you. Yes, Daniel Wani, please welcome to bring us a speed on this particular program where USAID is targeting 25,000 youth age between 15 and 29. Thank you, Radio Mirai, for having me. USAID has, as my director Darren just mentioned, USAID has a long history of helping to build foundational skills, it needs to be successful, of course this includes reading, maths, vocational, entrepreneurial and other very important life skills. At USAID through this program, which is 43.43 million US dollars for your project, which is called Youth Empowerment Activity, that targets building skill for over 25,000 youth. The young men and women age between 15 to 29 and we are doing four major things under this program. One is increasing access to functional literacy, numeracy, soft skills and well-being programs in the five states and 14 counties and also expanding entrepreneurial employment and vocational opportunities is another major part of this activity and of course changing behavior and cultivating gender equity among youth to make a positive product to help the choices. And of course the last one, as you know, our country has been wrapped with the conflict and so we need young people to build social cohesion among themselves and their communities by improving civic engagement and supporting youth contribution to address community needs. Right, and Wani, I'll come back to you. Something to Dennis to quote, could you briefly tell us about, I mean Wani just gave us an overview of the activities but what is currently running? Yes, thank you, Radio Miraya, I would like to briefly of what is currently taking place. As far as Youth Empowerment Activity is concerned, EDC is the technical lead implementing the Youth Empowerment Activity in Switzerland. So we work with the other partners, concerning partners like Church for Common Ground which is the one taking lead in the social cohesion using a common ground approach. We also work with national organization in the different states. We have Niall Hope, we have Women at Advancement Organization. We have mobile humanitarian agency and they are the one doing this and we also work with the youth lead and youth serving organizations that are the grassroots level. Some of these organizations are not necessarily registered organizations but they have presence on the ground. Right. So we work with them and they know more about the local context, the association like football association, so that is how we run out the program. So to go to the implementation approach I think it is very important to highlight. We have this youth where we put them, we place them into two part ways. We have got part way one and in our part way one it looks at the youth who have never stepped into a class before. That means they don't know to read and write and we take them through the literacy and numeracy that Daniel Wani has highlighted it as one of our curriculum and we have the work readiness curriculum that we train them for nine months, three days a week and three hours in a day. Right and I would like to understand for those who have never had an opportunity to know how to read and write have you had any statistics like how many of those? Well for our part way one the youth that we enroll for this year actually they are the biggest number of the youth that we target over 80% of the youth fall under part way one classes. So we have a number of them that are really taken through these classes and they are participating very well in this. For this year we have a target of 6,000 and 21 participants who enroll in these classes. Right so is that all around or? Yes this is all around. Yeah 6,000 is a target so how many have you been able to reach? Yeah this is what we have so far reached this is for this year. Thank you so much and I'm glad to announce that I have one of the participants. I've been to Fadel Tawale. This was a experience with the experience of the project that gave us a good time and what did you learn? Okay. So, Talim de Shilu Kamuda, Shilu's, Chizar Shilu, Chizar Shilu, Chizar Shilu. Sure. So, so I'm going to be able to talk to you about the family. So, if you are a little bit older, you can't come in longer. 30. Yeah. Okay. And I'll come back to you in a bit later. So coming to you Daniel after giving us the overview, you spoke about how the project is a four-year project. How many years have you been into it? This is the second year. This project was awarded in 2022 and so the implementers in just one year. As Dukul just mentioned, the year one actually target above 4,500 and this year it's 6,021 youth and of course overall out of respect to really the 25,000 youth and of which we have the 7,850 who will be experiencing some work experience, I think Dukul just mentioned about also exposing this youth to be able to do work and of course, about 100,000 youth with the sexual and reproductive health as one of the component that I mentioned earlier. Of course, this youth working through youth, I mean, youth later and youth serving organization will also have the trainers who train these youth like Beni here, trained all over the project funding. Of course, you have already mentioned about anchor organization, youth later and youth serving organization. Those are the people who are on the ground actually being the training, monitoring and providing support services for that. Okay, yes. Would you like to add something to go? Yes, I would like to add something. I only highlighted about one component and that is part-way one component. We also have part-way two classes and part-way two classes, this is basically for our youth who have attained a certain level of education, does drop out from primary aid, does drop out from secondary education, but basically they know how to read and write. So we take them, their training duration takes nine months, three days a week and three hours a day. So what happens here, we have a curriculum, our interesting curriculum that is work readiness, curriculum and be your own boss. Here we have a number of modules. We have like personal development that we take them through, let them know what values and skills they have, values and qualities that employers are really looking for. We also have communication skills and in the communication skills looking at how to communicate effectively with their hostomas, keeping one customer at a time. At times we realize that in the business sector, others can have a customer, but they cannot be able to keep that customer, so we give a scale of keeping one customer at a time. We also train them through leadership. These leadership actually, they need to look at the qualities that can really make them a good leaders who are their role models and as they are going to start their businesses, they are going to be actually leaders. We have also finding job and keeping job, which is one of the most interesting thing. People can find job, but the times cannot keep job, so we tell our youth that look. We are going to make a work-based learning where we expose them to some successful business owners so that they really learn what is happening around in the business sector. This is actually one of the interesting models that we take them curriculum, that we take them through, and at the end of the day, we really need to see how it's going to change their life. That's interesting, and how do you identify your participants? Yes, that is very interesting, I wish you were part of the National Advisory Committee, where they really talked of how they are different, they are now changed from the other people outside there. They have set their own goals, and in their own goals, they will go step by step. We don't let them go alone, we are going to have hand-holding activities where we say look, in this intervention we need to be very innovative, we need to be very creative in really making, addressing the issues around us, and above all, we need them to be civically engaged, how to participate in the civic engagement activities in their community for the better men of the community. And what are the centers that these kind of services happening in the different places? Yes, we have a number of centers, like in Eastern Equatoria, we are in two counties. We have centers in Budi, we have centers in Capotanoth, in Western Bargazal, we have centers in Dureva County, and we have centers in Wau County, where our sister is coming from our trailer. Yes, and in Unity state, we have centers in lair, we have centers in Mayan did, and we have centers in Panjizar. We also, in Appanile, we have centers in Valet, we also have centers in Ulam. In Zhongole, we have Acobo East, we have centers in Pivor, and we have centers in Acobo West, and soon we are going to have some more centers on that side. For a reason, we have Juba as additional, we are part way two centers that we have started in Juba. Do you have centers of those in Juba? Yes, in Juba, we have got Juba rural centers, like in Gure, we have centers, in Chirikat, we have center, and above all, we have one in Chirikat, and there is one in this secondary school called Juba Day, secondary school. So these are some of the centers, and Junup open space, we also have centers there for our part way two participants. Okay, part way two are those who dropped out of school. Those who dropped out. Yes, those who dropped out either in primary aid or in secondary education, but they know how to read and write. Yeah. All right. Then it's the question. And another quick one, we have one of the methodology like in the training, we have also interactive audio instruction, where this is majorly for part way one, where these modules that have just highlighted, these modules, they interact between the trainer and the youth, and then the radio, where everything we have got some episodes that are already properly designed to help them able to interact with the trainer, listen, and discuss. Yeah. Okay. Thank you so much for extensively elaborating what your work is. Thank you. (speaking in foreign language) (speaking in foreign language) (speaking in foreign language) Okay, chukran. (speaking in foreign language) How can people join you in your program? 'Cause she's calling upon the people to come and join. What is, is there a procedure, or do you just come and walk into the centers that you just mentioned? - Yeah, the procedures. As I mentioned before, you know, when we look at these civil society organizations, we have the national organization and the youth-led organization. These people are the grass roots level. They actually, they know the areas where, especially we get, we can get really these target groups that we are looking at. - So those people are charged with identifying the people? - They will be identifying these people with their local authorities around. Yeah. - Okay, Dennis Dokou, Darren and Daniel Wani, plus Benjamin, thank you so much for your time. Wani, is there anything else you're parting shots? What is your last remark? - Thank you so much. I think this is really very important program that we all need to put all our efforts, and I think it demands all this stakeholders to be able to improve their life of young people in South Sudan. Thank you so much. - Well, lady and gentlemen, thank you so much for your time.