Welcome!
If you are working with youth and livelihoods, this newsletter provides some great resources, such as new research on entrepreneurship education and training programs. This month's newsletter features the theme of youth-led peacebuilding and violence prevention. Read the inspiring story on recent youth-led violence prevention efforts in the Caribbean, and check out the wealth of new resources from our peacebuilding grantee, UNOY Peacebuilders, which shed light on how youth civic engagement contributes to effective peacebuilding and mitigating extremism. In addition to webinars, the project has produced and posted new resources on YouthPower.org on a variety of topics, including adolescent girls health and HIV research and tools, and various reports connected to country level youth assessments.
And don’t forget to register for the upcoming YouthPower Learning webinars and events in April and May to learn about best practices in community outreach, hear a funder’s perspective on youth engagement and civic engagement, and learn more about youth participation in preventing violent extremism.
Visit Youthpower.org to access many more resources and events that can help you improve your youth programming!
- The YouthPower Learning Team
NEW YOUTHPOWER RESOURCES AND EVENTS
What Works in Entrepreneurship Education and Training Programs for Youth?
Evidence Report
YouthPower Action recently completed a report to summarize the evidence of successful youth entrepreneurship training and support interventions. The report is intended to help USAID staff and implementing partners understand what outcomes can reasonably be expected from entrepreneurship programs and apply this understanding to designing and implementing future programming. It reflects the findings from an analysis of rigorously evaluated entrepreneurship education and training (EE&T) programs that assessed results according to four main categories of outcomes: 1) entrepreneurial status (e.g., how a participant’s individual entrepreneurial, employment, or income status has changed), 2) firm performance, 3) entrepreneurial capabilities (e.g., an entrepreneur’s competencies, knowledge, and technical skills), and 4) entrepreneurial mindsets (e.g., socio-emotional skills and awareness of entrepreneurship). The report provides recommendations for effective EE&T programming for different groups of entrepreneurs, including at-risk populations, female entrepreneurs, and rural youth. The report frames the discussion by defining entrepreneurship and the different typologies of entrepreneurship relevant to USAID programming. Read the report.
Contact: Kristin Brady: kbrady@fhi360.org
Webinar Recording and Resources: Beyond Dividing Lines: Overcoming Challenges in Youth-Led Civic Engagement for Peace
YouthPower Learning hosted a webinar with its grantee, the United Network of Young Peacebuilders (UNOY), focused on how youth in Afghanistan, Colombia, Libya, and Sierra Leone are bridging the divide between peace and conflict. The panel discussed youth initiatives that contribute to bringing together societies, create positive perceptions of all groups, and help foster dialogue and normalization of relations among groups previously opposed to each other; for example, when former gang members create peace initiatives in Sierra Leone, or when young women who had faced discrimination find their own voice and strength to create new enterprises.
Access the webinar recording and related resources.
Resources and Webinar Recording: Considerations for Index Testing and Partner Notification for Adolescent Girls and Young Women (AGYW)
Index texting for HIV-positive clients can be paired with partner notification (PN) to ensure that both index clients and their networks are rapidly linked with treatment and care, as well as other key prevention and reproductive health (RH) services where needed. Adolescent girls and young women (AGYW) in low- and middle- income countries (LMICs) are a priority population that would benefit from HIV index testing linked with PN. Implementation of HIV partner notification needs careful consideration to minimize potential social harms and adverse events for AGYW who may be at risk for intimate partner violence (IPV) or stigma related to their sexuality or HIV status.
YouthPower Learning reviewed the evidence on social harms linked with HIV index testing and PN, and produced a technical report, brief, and guidance tool. The report synthesizes the potential risks to AGYW in LMIC of HIV PN. The accompanying guidance tool can be used by health services and provides programmatic and service delivery considerations for implementing index testing services with AGYW, a provider job aid, and a toolbox with additional recommended training and resources. YouthPower Learning also hosted a webinar that summarized the report and guidance document and discussed the relationship among HIV partner notification, index testing, and IPV and its effects on AGYW living with HIV.
Access the resources.
UPCOMING EVENTS
April 16, 2019: Africa in Transition: Investing in Youth for Economic Prosperity
April 25-26, 2019: 2019 Impact Fellowships Summit
April 30, 2019: Effective Tools and Practices for Promoting Life Skills Among Girls
May 9, 2019: Webinar: Mental Health Programming: Best Practices from Sport for Development
May 13-14, 2019: Gang Prevention & Intervention Conference
May 20, 2019: First-Time Parents: New Insights and Evidence to Catalyze Global Action
AROUND THE WORLD WITH YOUTHPOWER
Caribbean Youth Create Blueprint for Violence Prevention
Youth leaders and policymakers from the Caribbean rallied around the issue of youth-led violence prevention at a recent United States Government-supported summit that provided them with a blueprint for building peace in their respective communities. Nearly 270 people from more than 20 countries attended the mid January Caribbean Summit on Youth Violence Prevention.
To reduce violence across the Caribbean and foster a “culture of peace,” youth must be meaningfully engaged as leaders, say youth from across the region in a draft agenda for advocacy and action. The draft Caribbean Youth Advocacy and Action Agenda on Violence Prevention (AAA) was developed by a group of about 20 youth from the region , with the input of hundreds more. The Agenda lays out a youth-centric plan for preventing violence and highlights several successful programs that can serve as models.
The Steering Committee for the Learning for Youth Networking and Change Sessions (LYNCS), a regional learning network focusing on youth-centered violence prevention, developed the AAA over the course of several months, by hosting webinars, youth dialogues, and surveys to collect a wide range of youth perspectives and ideas.
“This Action and Advocacy Agenda represents us as young people throughout the Caribbean region,” remarked LYNCS Co-Chair Kurba-Marie Questelles at the Summit’s opening ceremony. “We as young people cannot sit idly by and expect our governments to do everything. We must all work together to build a culture of peace and prosperity within our Caribbean communities.”
“That Agenda identifies a pathway to develop a culture of peace,” CARICOM Secretary-General Ambassador Irwin LaRocque said of the AAA. “This initiative and the process through which it has been defined is an excellent illustration of the commitment of our youth to play their part and be leaders in the development of our community.” Learn more.
Access the draft Caribbean Youth Advocacy and Action Agenda on Violence Prevention.
Contact: Evelyn Rupert: EvelynR@CreativeDC.com
Contribute to the Learning Agenda for PYD!
Each of us has an exciting opportunity to contribute to our understanding of PYD and close gaps in the evidence outlined in the PYD Learning Agenda. Recent contributions to the learning agenda have been added to youthpower.org – thank you to our early contributors! We encourage anyone who has related learnings and evidence from their work to submit their resources and help advance the field of PYD. Please send your contributions via email to info@youthpower.org.
NEW RESOURCES ON YOUTHPOWER.ORG
YouthPower Learning Resources
• Evidence Review of Cross-Sectoral Youth Development Approaches in Conflict-Affected Environments
• Liberia Youth Situational Analysis
• Technical and Programmatic Considerations for Index Testing and Partner Notification for Adolescent Girls and Young Women: Technical Report
• Planning and Conducting Index Testing and Partner Notification for Adolescent Girls and Young Women: Implementation and Clinical Guidance for Health Services
Monitoring, Evaluation, Research, and Learning (MERL)
• YouthPower Action/Programa Para o Futuro - Expansion Mozambique: Final Report
• More than Checking a Box: Intentional Youth Engagement in the Passages Project
• Youth Volunteers Can Contribute to Significant Reading Gains: Evidence from the HYVALL Project in Senegal
Democracy, Conflict, and Humanitarian Assistance
• Youth4Peace Training Toolkit! UNOY 2018 (Note: large file)
• Self-Determination, Engagement, and Young Energy in a Fragile Environment: Positive Youth Development in Northeast Kenya
• Pathways for Peace : Inclusive Approaches to Preventing Violent Conflict
Economic Growth, Education, and Environment
• What Works in Entrepreneurship Education and Training Programs for Youth? Executive Summary
• Demand for Skills in Albania : An Analysis of the Skills Towards Employment and Productivity Survey
• The Evidence Is in: How Should Youth Employment Programs in Low-Income Countries be Designed?
Gender
• Mentor Program for Adolescent Girls and Young Women in Uganda (Infographic)
• Women’s Empowerment in Action: Evidence from a Randomized Control Trial in Africa
• Women and Young Persons with Disabilities: Guidelines for Providing Rights-Based and Gender-Responsive Services to Address Gender-Based Violence and Sexual and Reproductive Health and Rights
Health
• An Online Support Group Intervention for Adolescent Living with HIV in Nigeria: A Pre-Post Test Study
• Gender role conflict and sexual health and relationship practices amongst young men living in urban informal settlements in South Africa
Agriculture
• Democratic Republic of Congo Jobs Diagnostic
• Participation of Youth: Responsible Agricultural Investment (RAI) Knowledge into Action Note
Find more resources and events at YouthPower.org.