The outbreak of Covid-19 has accelerated efforts by practitioners to move learning, skills building and mentoring online rapidly. Practitioners need to address how they will reach the youth in low bandwidth areas. If this is not confronted, the youth in rural, remote, and disconnected areas will be further marginalized. The webinar featured selected strategies identified in the recent S4YE Knowledge Brief on Online Learning Models for Youth in Low Bandwidth Areas, such as mobile vans used by Save the Children Skills-to-Succeed Program in Bangladesh and bite-size mobile learning courses of Every1Mobile.

Speakers:

• Monica Caminiti, Director, Skills to Succeed, Save the Children
•  Atik Chowdhury, Project Director, Skills to Succeed- Bangladesh, Save the Children
• Jocelyn Williams, Director, Business Development, Every1Mobile

 Discussant:

• Iñaki Sánchez Ciarrusta, Analyst, Global EdTech Team, World Bank

Watch a recording from the session=>>

 

On Tuesday, 13 April, the S4YE hosted a webinar together with Commonwealth of Learning on how TVET institutions can approach teaching practical skills online through a blended model. For more than 30 years, the Commonwealth of Learning (COL) has focused on the potential for open and distance learning to increase access to quality education in developing countries.  Even before the pandemic, COL was piloting a model blending online and workplace learning to make TVET more accessible and relevant to help solve the global skills development challenges. However, the pandemic has broadened interest in online methods.

This webinar covered COL’s experiences so far, including:
•    The opportunity to innovate to overcome existing TVET challenges building on decades of experience in Australasia, Africa, and Asia,
•    COL’s model of online plus workplace learning,
•    Lessons from projects that worked on teaching practical skills in trades like construction, woodworking, and cell phone repair in Nigeria, Zambia, and Tuvalu.

Watch the video recording here!

 

Providing support to young people through this crisis is crucial as the pandemic has disproportionately affected young people and women. Global Mentorship Initiative provides guidance and business skills to underserved college students through online mentorship, with over 1,000 students and mentors currently involved in the program.

• Learn about Global Mentorship Initiative’s online mentorship model and practical examples of how the team has designed and rapidly scaled the program,
• Get to know about challenges faced by young people entering the global workforce today, and
• Hear about mentors’ and students’ experiences from around the world.

This webinar is part of the ongoing knowledge learning strategy of S4YE that focuses on how organizations are developing innovative solutions to support youth in the wake of COVID-19.

Watch the video recording here!

 

This webinar is part of the ongoing ‘S4YE - Insights from the Private Sector’ series and focuses on how companies are developing innovative solutions to support youth in the wake of COVID-19.
 
COVID-19 continues to remain a global health crisis, disrupting on-campus learning, driving widespread unemployment, and leaving many searching for answers about employment opportunities in the future. Amid the uncertainty, the edtech companies and governments are finding new ways of supporting unemployed workers. 

The webinar highlighted how IFC and the private sector are working with governments on reskilling/upskilling the workforce and showcase lessons learned by  Coursera, an IFC client, in launching and scaling its Workforce Recovery Initiative in the wake of COVID. The recovery initiative enables governments to provide unemployed workers free access to their course catalog, helping them develop the knowledge and skills needed to become re-employed quickly. Coursera activated more than 220 programs for governments across 100+ countries and 25 US states. These programs have benefited more than 1M learners to date. This webinar focused on practical design elements required to structure large-workforce development programs, government agencies' role, and share lessons learned from the Philippines, Costa Rica, and Malaysia. You can also access the recorded webinar here. The presentations can be downloaded from the link below. 
 

With rapid changes in technology and the recent pandemic, remote work is fast becoming the new normal. While remote work has brought in more flexibility, it has raised its own set of challenges. What does this mean for youth, who are new entrants to the labour market? In this new “online“ world, how are internships being structured? Can internships be designed entirely “virtually”?

This webinar discussed a recent initiative led by the private sector to experiment with virtual internships. The Alliance for YOUth (all4YOUth), a group of private sector companies, have developed virtual internship guidelines.

Watch the recording here!

During the session, Anita Tiessen, CEO of Youth Business International (YBI), focused on 4 key insights drawn from YBI’s work of supporting young entrepreneurs during COVID. She highlighted the importance of business pivots, the role of digital solutions, mentoring youth to build emotional resilience and inclusiveness in outreach. Marija Ralic, Lead of Google APAC from Google.org shared how their organization is supporting non-profit organizations with grants, technology, and volunteers. Roshni Venkatesh, Global Giving Lead in Accenture, highlighted the Skills to Succeed initiative and the Sky’s the Limit project, (an innovative digital platform that connects young entrepreneurs with business professionals, to get the mentorship they need). YBI with support from Google.org and Accenture, leveraged their 20 years of experience and 70 members and delivery partners across 65 countries to rapidly respond to meet the needs of entrepreneurs. This has led to YBI reaching over 130,000 entrepreneurs during the pandemic, to help them protect their businesses.

The session was also joined by Neelima Tippavajhala, Founder and CEO of Cocotang India and a young entrepreneur who shared her journey of grit and resilience during the pandemic. Neelima’s organization produces natural coconut drinks in India. BYST and YBI provided her with financial and moral support that allowed Cocotang to survive and thrive as the business added new types of drinks to their menu for local customers.

Watch the video recording here!

As we continue to operate remotely, entry-level and diverse job seekers face additional challenges in finding the right jobs. As learning and education systems are disrupted by the pandemic, the private sector is finding new ways of supporting under-represented groups of youth to become job ready and build careers in the digital industry. S4YE - Insights from the Private Sector recently featured Nicole Goldstein from Facebook and Darryl Pinkus from Coursera who spoke about their recent partnership on a social media marketing professional certificate program. This session focused on the insights and learnings in implementing an online learning platform. The speakers shared their experience of launching the certified course in the wake of COVID-19. The focus of the professional certificate program is to provide participants with hands-on, project-based training designed to be completed within 5 months and provide direct connection to open roles with an industry-recognized certificate. The program aims at people with no prior industry experience as well as under-represented, diverse groups of job seekers who want to build careers in the digital marketing industry.

 

Watch the video recording here!

This webinar is part of S4YE's recently launched Brief on How Technology Can Help Incorporate Youth Voice in Employment Programs. As organizations around the world have transitioned to remote operations, moving to virtual engagement can be challenging. Youth employment organizations are finding creative ways to engage young people through technology. This is to ensure that their projects efficiently meet the current local market demands and address the constraints faced by youth.

In this webinar, S4YE was joined by two partners Educate! and Africa's Voices Foundation. Emmanuel Kalyebi, Senior Program Manager of Educate! and Samuel Kimeu, Executive Director of Africa's Voices Foundation spoke about how their organizations have used radio technology, SMS platforms, and social media tools to engage young people in Africa. This session focused on the design and implementation of incorporating youth voice into youth programs, and delve into the factors, practical challenges and opportunities of doing so. 

You can find full access to the video recording here. 

The role of the private sector in advancing youth employment is crucial. As part of our Insights from the Private Sector series, S4YE recently hosted an engaging discussion with Bickey Russell from Google who talked about Kormo Jobs, a job-matching and career development app, that is operating in Bangladesh, Indonesia and India. The other two speakers, Kazi Inam Ahmed, Director of Gemcon Group and Sabbir Nasir, Executive Director of ACI Logistics (Shwapno) provided practical insights into the implementation of the Kormo Jobs app in their local businesses in Bangladesh.

The webinar highlighted Google's experience of creating Kormo app to cater to the emerging needs of informal young job seekers and employers in the wake of COVID-19. You can find the full presentation in the link below and the webinar recording here.

This S4YE webinar featured Isabelle Salcher from New York University and Karla Yoder from Global Communities. The seminar focused on the the effects of a nationwide, government-sponsored apprenticeship program in Ghana and the YIEDIE project which implemented an apprenticeship that provided over 14,000 youth with technical skills. You can find access to the National Apprenticeship Program Ghana Experimental Evidence presentation slides here and the YIEDIE Ghana apprenticeship model Global Communities presentation here.