Promoting Youth
DevWorks helps youth find work, create businesses, and get involved in their communities. We train youth in life, technical, and business skills, and connect them to employment opportunities or help them start their own businesses. We also work with youth organizations on contributing to their communities.
Creating employment & entrepreneurship opportunities
Lack of employment opportunities for youth is a major contributor to poverty, violence, and social unrest in the developing world. DevWorks works with the public and private sectors to develop meaningful, sustainable employment and entrepreneurship opportunities for thousands of young people. We train them in market, leadership and life skills. We offer technical training for rural disadvantaged youth and link young people to opportunities for work and business development with internships, specialized business training, and access to financial services. We strengthen youth leaders and promising social entrepreneurs by equipping them with the necessary skills and resources to identify, engage, and pursue meaningful opportunities.
Encouraging civic involvement
Proactive youth engagement enables communities to do a better job of creating the services, opportunities, and supports that young people need, drawing on the energy and new ideas youth can bring. DevWorks trains and coaches youth-led civil society groups to improve their leadership, advocacy, organizational management, and fundraising skills. We promote youth participation in local issues, such as reducing conflict, countering violent extremism, and promoting transparent, accountable governance. DevWorks also partners with youth organizations and change makers with the potential to grow their civic activities into socially beneficial enterprises.
Youth Projects
Feed the Future Tanzania Advancing Youth (AY)
USAID | Tanzania | 2017–2022
USAID’s Feed the Future Tanzania Advancing Youth (AY) aims to empower Tanzanian youth with the skills, knowledge, and resources they need to enter into meaningful and sustainable employment or entrepreneurship in agriculture and other value chains that have sustainable income-generating potential. With a consortium led by DAI, the project works with the private sector to identify the skills and labor needed by businesses and develops tailor-made interventions to empower young people with the relevant skills and opportunities to respond to the markets’ demand. To encourage improved financial management, AY trains youth to set up new and work with existing savings and loan associations in target communities. Specific outcomes of the project include:
- Increasing Entrepreneurship and Workforce Readiness skills among youth
- Strengthening leadership and positive youth development
- Enhancing life skills for healthy living and future planning
Success stories:
Youth, Advocacy, Women, Work, and Alliances (YAWWA)
USAID | Niger | 2014–2017
DevWorks led the Youth, Advocacy, Women, Work, and Alliances (YAWWA) project, in partnership with USAID, in five regions of Niger (Niamey, Maradi, Diffa, Zinder, and Agadez) to increase civic engagement and create a culture of entrepreneurship. YAWWA strengthened youth leaders and promising social entrepreneurs in their communities by equipping them with the skills and resources necessary to identify, engage, and pursue meaningful opportunities. DevWorks targeted youth organizations and change makers that had the potential to convert their localized civic activities into socially beneficial enterprises that can be expanded and replicated given the right knowledge, tools, and resources. Through YAWWA, DevWorks created a network of innovators across Niger and foster dialogue and a culture of social entrepreneurship. The networks formed by DevWorks allowed for mentoring exchanges and problem solving across the five project regions.
What We Do
Agriculture
Water, Sanitation, & Hygiene
Governance
Environment & Natural Resources
Youth
