YouthBuild International and IDEJEN team up to launch YouthBuild/IDEJEN
In response to the earthquake that devastated many parts of Haiti on January 12, 2010, YouthBuild International has launched YouthBuild/IDEJEN. With core funding support from the MasterCard Foundation, Clinton Bush Haiti Fund, the Inter-American Development Bank and Catholic Relief Services, YBI, working with its local Haitian partner IDEJEN, broke ground in November on the first of 12 training centers. This is a five-year initiative designed to improve the livelihood prospects of Haitian young people and mobilize young people in Haiti to play a significant leadership role in rebuilding the earthquake devastated country.
The program will couple the strengths of the existing IDEJEN program with the strengths of the YouthBuild approach. Over the five year period of implementation, the project will reach at least 9,000 young people and engage them in post-earthquake rebuilding projects focused on the rebuilding and building of homes, schools, health clinics, sanitation blocks, and green infrastructure. The program includes six months of intensive on site skills training, soft skills instruction, leadership development and basic education, followed by six months of follow up support as young people seek viable opportunities for employment and self -employment in the formal and informal economic sectors. Project activities will be delivered out of 12 training centers located in eight geographical departments. These centers will be built by YouthBuild and IDEJEN students.
The project will begin with an intensive six month period of stakeholder orientation and institutional capacity building to ensure all partners are unified and prepared for implementation. Each of the 12 centers will operate two six month training cycles. In years 1 and 2,105 young people will be served in each six month cycle. In years 3-5, 145 young people will be served in each cycle. In the first six months of each cycle, young people will divide their time between intensive classroom-based learning and rigorous community-based learning on professional-grade work sites building or rebuilding homes, clinics, schools, sanitation blocks, and environmental assets. In this way YouthBuild will link individual success and development with community development priorities related to post earthquake rebuilding. Following the intensive six months of education, employment readiness and technical skills instruction, participants will receive another six months of tracking, coaching, counselling, development of credit, savings, and business support, plus access to development finance to establish themselves in viable livelihood activities.