Welcome!

Over the last few months, YouthPower Learning has helped advance Positive Youth Development (PYD) by completing several youth assessments for USAID missions and by launching the new online toolkit on youth inclusion in democracy, human rights, and governance. Our colleagues in El Salvador launched a new program to provide youth with a successful career path. In addition, we have expanded our collection of useful resources. Find out more about these accomplishments: 

• Learn about YouthPower Learning’s Armenia and Rwanda youth assessments results
• Discover our new toolkit for youth inclusion in democracy, human rights, and governance (DRG)
• Read a story about vulnerable youth accessing improved technical training in El Salvador

As 2019 closes and a new year begins, we will host a webinar on December 12 with the Center for the Study of Social Policy and announce the winners of our YouthPower photo contest. We will also welcome 2020 with YouthPower network webinars in January and February. In addition, on January 23 we will host our YouthPower Annual Learning Network Meeting. Stay tuned for more details!

As always, we invite you to 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

The Toolkit for Youth Inclusion in Democracy, Human Rights, and Governance

YouthPower Learning recently launched a new online resource: the Toolkit for Youth Inclusion in Democracy, Human Rights, and Governance. Adapted from Counterpart International’s “Youth and Democracy, Human Rights, and Governance Programming: A Technical Guide” and other USAID and YouthPower Learning resources, this toolkit is a reference for designing, managing, and evaluating youth and democracy, human rights, and governance (DRG)-related programs. The publication’s 10 modules explain how to integrate youth effectively into different DRG sub-sectors and include useful information on monitoring indicators, promising practices in youth and DRG, and cross-cutting considerations.

The toolkit was designed to provide guidance to USAID staff, partners, and others involved in strategy development and program design, management, and evaluation of youth and DRG-related programs, or programs that include components focused on youth. Learn more.

Young Women Transform: New Podcast Episodes and Blog Posts

Education Links produced a series of podcasts, videos, and a blog featuring two of YouthPower Learning's Young Women Transform Prize winners, Safeplan Uganda (Safeplan) and Kibera Community Empowerment Organization (KCEO). New episodes were recently released on the Young Women Transform podcast, and a new blog post featuring KCEO and Safeplan was published. Learn more about these inspiring young women, and how they are bettering the lives of women and their entire community! Visit the Prize Winner’s page.

UPCOMING EVENTS

December 9-11, 2019: 2019 Global Digital Health Forum
December 11, 2019: YouthPower2: Learning and Evaluation Virtual Kick-off Meeting
December 12, 2019: Building and Measuring Protective and Promotive Factors in Youth: The Youth Thrive Framework
December 16, 2019: UNHCR Global Refugee Forum 2019
December 18, 2019: YouthLead Webinar: Youth Participation in Advocating for a Gender-Equitable World
January 27-30, 2020: 2nd International Young Women Mediation Forum

AROUND THE WORLD WITH YOUTHPOWER

Providing Modern Machinery to Prepare Vulnerable Youth for Manufacturing Careers 

On November 12, the USAID/El Salvador Mission Director, David Gosney, leaders of the plastic sector training center Fundación para el Desarrollo Integral de los Trabajadores de la Industria del Plástico (FUNDEPLAST), the national vocational training institution Instituto Salvadoreño de Formación Profesional (INSAFORP), and other representatives of the plastics industry, celebrated a key USAID Bridges to Employment (Puentes) milestone: the installation of new specialized plastics machinery and equipment at FUNDEPLAST. This modern machinery will allow vulnerable youth participating in plastics training courses to benefit from hands-on experience, learning how to properly operate the state-of-the-art machines to produce a variety of rigid and flexible plastic products, and then utilizing the laboratory equipment to test the quality of the products.

Through a grant of nearly $3 million to FUNDEPLAST, USAID Bridges to Employment is making significant and long-lasting strides in improving the quality and relevance of technical training offered to youth in El Salvador, ensuring they gain the particular knowledge and skills demanded by plastics companies. The provision of these machines substantially contributes to the long-term institutional capacity of the training center FUNDEPLAST, making it possible for the training center to offer market-relevant skills to increased numbers of vulnerable youth for careers in a high-growth industry for years into the future. Read more.

Contact: Caterina Valero, cvalero@puentesempleo.com

New on the PYD Learning Agenda

The PYD Learning Agenda prioritizes five themes to serve as anchors, guiding future research on PYD programs in low and middle-income countries (LMICs). These themes are understanding how PYD achieves impact, cross-sectoral impact, measurement of PYD constructs, PYD for marginalized or vulnerable populations, and youth engagement in PYD programs. Learn more about the latest resources under the third theme, measurement of PYD constructs.

• Youth Family Planning Policy Scorecard: Measuring Commitment to Effective Policy and Program Interventions
• What Gets Measured Matters: A Methods Note for Measuring Women and Girls’ Empowerment
• Guiding Principles for Building Soft and Life Skills among Adolescents and Young Adults

These are just a few of the available resources from our growing collection. We are adding new resources to the Learning Agenda frequently, so we encourage you to explore our resources page. We encourage anyone with related learnings and evidence from their work to submit their resources or reach out to us about possible collaborations in the field of PYD. All of our work helps build a joint and comprehensive understanding of PYD and closes the gaps in the evidence outlined in the PYD Learning Agenda. Send your contributions via email to info@youthpower.org.

NEW RESOURCES ON YOUTHPOWER.ORG

YouthPower Learning Resources

• Boîte à Outils L’évaluation du Développement Positif des Jeunes
• Armenia Youth Situational Analysis
• Summary Brief: Armenia Youth Situational Analysis
• Rwanda Youth Assessment
• Summary Brief: Overview of Findings from the USAID-Rwanda Youth Assessment Situational Analysis

Monitoring, Evaluation, Research, and Learning (MERL)

• Orphans and Vulnerable Children (OVC) Survey Toolkit
• Using Data to See and Select the Most Vulnerable Adolescent Girls
• Endline Report: Youth Cohort Study of USAID/West Bank and Gaza’s Partnerships with Youth Activity

Democracy, Conflict, and Humanitarian Assistance

• Youth in Action Against Violence in Schools
• How to Teach Civics in Action to K-12 Students
• Insecurity, Distress and Mental Health: Experimental and Randomized Controlled Trials of a Psychosocial Intervention for Youth Affected by the Syrian Crisis

Economic Growth, Education, and Environment

• Modifying the Secondary School Environment to Reduce Bullying and Aggression: the INCLUSIVE Cluster RCT
• Refugee Education 2030: A Strategy for Refugee Inclusion
• EQUIP3 Lessons Learned Experiences in Livelihoods, Literacy, and Leadership in Youth Programs in 26 Countries

Gender

• Transforming Vulnerable Girls to Entrepreneurial Women Through Leadership, Livelihood and Entrepreneurship Skills
• Be a Man, Change the Rules: Findings and Lessons from Seven Years of CARE International Balkans’ Young Men Initiative
• GEMS Campaign Guide: Gender Equity Movement in Schools
• Bridging Policy and Practice: Gender-transformative TVET to Increase Women’s Workforce Participation (Brookings Institute)

Health

• Adolescents Under the Radar in the Asia-Pacific AIDS Response
• Transforming Gender Norms, Roles and Power Dynamics for Better Health
• Preventing Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACES): Leveraging the Best Available Evidence

Agriculture 

• Thematic Studies on Recommended Actions for Strengthening TVET: InnoVATE
• Problems Faced by Rural Youth in Coimbatore District of Tamil Nadu

Find more resources and events at YouthPower.org.