The Sunday Mail
Youth Buzz
Fatima Bulla-Musakwa
A NEW World Bank report titled “Collapse and Recovery: How Covid-19 Eroded Human Capital and What to Do about It”, paints a grim picture of how the pandemic negatively impacted the world, with particular focus on young people.
According to the report, 40 million people, who would have had jobs had the pandemic not hit the world, were unemployed at the end of 2021, worsening global youth unemployment.
In some countries, 25 percent of all young people were neither in education, employment nor training in 2021, it says.
Zimbabwe, like many other countries, is recovering from the effects of the pandemic and the youth, who account for 62 percent of the population, must be at the centre of all rebuilding efforts.
It is in this vein that various organisations are launching youth empowerment initiatives to support young people in communities. This is meant to ensure that they pick up the pieces and rebuild their lives.
One such organisation, Plan International, is currently implementing a programme dubbed the “Harare Urban Youth Empowerment Project” in Stoneridge and Epworth.
The project, which commenced in January last year, is funded by the Standard Chartered Foundation, in collaboration with the United Kingdom National Office.
It seeks to ensure that young people affected by Covid-19 are equipped with economic resilience techniques through empowerment initiatives.
Under the project, an initiative such as entrepreneurship training for those aged between 16 and 35 has been rolled out.
To date, 475 young people have been incorporated into the programme. Females account for 265 of the beneficiaries.
At least 29 people living with disabilities have benefitted from the initiative.
The training programme equips young people with basic entrepreneurial skills, enabling them to run small enterprises.
Youths have undergone training in fields such as welding, mushroom production, baking, beauty therapy, dressmaking and hairdressing.
To enhance financial literacy among the trainees, the project co-ordinators have roped in Standard Chartered Bank to provide financial education.
The initiative also covers mentorship of youths through established businesses within their communities.
The bank has unveiled a US$15 000 revolving fund for the programme.
The cash injection means aspiring young businesspeople can borrow funds for their start-ups and pay back after six months.
Funding is linked to one’s business proposals.
So far, 33 enterprises have been established.
Young people are trained to successfully run their businesses and to be accountable. They also learn how to handle finances.
“When the project was designed, we realised that working with young people could be difficult, but one of our objectives is to understand the dynamics around young people,” said Plan International monitoring, evaluation, research and learning coordinator Mr Wellington Muza.
“So, we are documenting experiences from our association with the young people for future project improvement.”
He said there is also the risk of some beneficiaries misappropriating funds, adding that this heightens the need to monitor their activities religiously.
“But it is one of our thrusts, as Plan International, to learn from this project on how we can implement future projects in a better and effective way for the youth.
“We will not take it as failure but as a learning curve,” he added.
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