Skilling Youth
Through a range of life and other skills building programs, UNICEF is opening doors to employment, changing lives and giving young people hope for a better future. A look at some examples of these programs and their impact from around the world.
Helping youth build skills for future success in a changing world
As technology continues to grow and evolve, changing the landscape of work as we know it, many young people are consistently being left behind.
Globally, 65 percent of adolescents globally are not on track to obtain the skills they will need to thrive in the economy of the future, where 9 out of 10 occupations will demand digital skills. Large disparities remain between high- and low-income countries. Women in many countries are 25 percent less likely than men to know how to leverage information and communication technology for basic tasks.
While traditional pathways from education to occupations still exist, a plethora of new opportunities have been created through the emergence and persistent growth of digital tools and platforms. For the world’s young people to seize these opportunities, they first need to build digital and practical life skills – something that often falls beyond the reach of traditional educational systems.
Life skills, digital skills, green skills and more
UNICEF works with partners across the world to help young people build and grow essential life skills to enhance their opportunities for future success.
These life skills, also called transferable skills or 21st-century skills, help reinforce literacy and numeracy and help build confidence and gain the know-how necessary to enter the workforce or maybe start a business. Life skills training can be a lead-up to vocational training, where trainees learn specific job skills relevant for employment.
Some training programs are part of a broader peacebuilding strategy to promote social cohesion in conflict-prone areas. A UNICEF-supported program in Nyunzu, Tanganyika province, Democratic Republic of the Congo, for example, trained teenaged boys and girls in masonry, carpentry, brick laying, mechanics, soap making and food preparation.
Here are some other UNICEF-supported programs and initiatives that prioritize skilling youth along with some examples of their impact in specific countries.
UPSHIFT
UNICEF’s UPSHIFT program was created in Kosovo in 2014 as a response to the challenges and lack of opportunity for youth in the country. Since then, UPSHIFT has been shaped and expanded to serve the diverse needs of young people in over 50 countries. Girls and young women represent over half of all UPSHIFT participants.
Focused on building essential skills like problem-solving, creativity, collaboration, leadership and communication, UPSHIFT's aim is to help young adults take control of their present and future. The program leverages multiple formats of instruction, including mentorship, workshops, in-person boot camps and online courses. Participants explore how to analyze and understand community challenges that they care about and build innovative products or services that address them. After pitching their ideas as part of an entrepreneurial challenge, the most promising ones receive seed funding and further mentoring to help their dreams become a reality.
In Poland, UPSHIFT has been a silver lining for refugees from Ukraine like 15-year-old Tasya, who dreams of returning to her home and reconnecting with loved ones. Until then, she’s determined to make the most of the opportunities she has in Poland, including UPSHIFT.
"We aim to help young people choose a future profession by organizing meetings with business representatives, where they can learn about different career paths," Tasya says. “Our project wasn’t selected for the finals, but we still want to implement it."
Related: Young People in Ukraine Gear Up for a Sustainable Energy Future
Generation Unlimited
Active in 89 countries, Generation Unlimited (GenU), a global public-private-youth partnership, focuses on providing the world’s young people with the right skills and opportunities to thrive as future leaders and changemakers in a digital and green economy. Launched by the United Nations in 2018 in partnership with UNICEF, GenU embraces youth skilling as a necessary component of building a greener, sustainable future for all.
There are local, national and even regional GenU initiatives. GenU Sahel reaches 100 million young people across West and Central Africa, working to generate business opportunities, mobilize resources and create fair and favorable conditions for all young people of the Sahel, focusing on the most disadvantaged.
Since GenU's 2023 launch of The Green Rising, a global initiative to spur and support youth-led climate action, UNICEF has been expanding education and skills building opportunities and connecting youth with resources and expertise in key UNICEF program areas.
Related: Climate Change and Youth Engagement
Skills4Girls
UNICEF is a major supporter of Skills4Girls, a global initiative with a broad portfolio of programs spanning 20 countries focused on training girls in competencies that position them to participate equally and to successfully transition to employment.
Numbering over 600 million globally, today's generation of adolescent girls is poised to have the greatest impact of any other to date; yet, young women still face many barriers in accessing technology or learning opportunities, from negative stereotypes to harmful social norms to discrimination. Only about 35 percent of post-secondary graduates in the fields of science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) are women.
From Niger to Vietnam, Skills4Girls programs are training girls in STEM subjects, digital technologies and social entrepreneurship as well as life skills like problem solving, negotiation, self esteem and communication, reaching some 300,000 girls each year.
In Cambodia, there is a Skills4Girls program teaching girls about coding and design, teamwork and storytelling through video games.
“After joining Skill4Girls, I realized that I am a fast learner," says 15-year-old Non, an 8th grade in Siem Reap whose team recently won a game design competition.
"I was with a computer almost every day, which meant I could explore," she says. "I had so much fun playing around with the tools on my laptop. Once we had a chance to create a game ourselves, I found out it was even more fun than playing them. What boys can do, we girls can do too.”
Related: Life Skills Programs Encourage Youth Engagement in Cambodia
Makani centers in Jordan
In Jordan, almost a quarter of adolescents between the ages of 15 and 19 in Jordan are neither in school or training or employed. UNICEF works with the government of Jordan to create opportunities for those young people to build technical and transferable skills.
Informal learning opportunities provided at UNICEF-supported Makani centers, for example, focus on digital literacy, entrepreneurship, vocational skills and more. (Makani is "my space" in Arabic.) The offerings are available to both refugee and host community children.
Masa, 16, has taken drama, music, painting and life skills classes at a UNICEF-supported Makani center in East Amman, Jordan. "I used to be unsure of what I wanted to study when I grew up," she says. "I received guidance at the center and I realized I want to become an engineer, and use drawing to help me in that field."
Related: UNICEF Helps Youth Build Life Skills in Jordan
Creatable project in Burundi
In Burundi, climate shocks continuously impact food availability and quality, causing almost half of households to be food insecure. The UNICEF-supported Creatable project helps equip adolescents in the country with practical skills they can use to help address community needs and protect the environment.
One popular activity is using grow bags to plant pop-up vegetable gardens. One group of high school students in Muruta, Muyinga province, designed a large cookstove that uses less firewood.
In some cases, participants have set up their own small businesses using what they've learned through the program.
"We see that Creatable has given the students a different image of their future lives," says Oscar Sinzinkayo, a Science and Technology teacher at Kabari Basic School involved in Creatable. "We hope it will help them to create small projects by themselves after school to get by in life."
Related: Eco-Friendly, Hands-on Projects Empower Students in Burundi
Vocational training in Afghanistan
In Afghanistan, UNICEF-supported vocational programs create possibility and hope for a better future following the ban on secondary and higher education for girls instituted by the Taliban in 2021.
One of these programs allows women aged 15 to 25 in Herat province to receive instruction on literacy, carpet weaving and wool spinning. Learning these practical skills helps motivate and inspire the girls involved in the program while also creating a chance for them to give back to their community.
This training means a second chance and a comeback from a distressed and frustrated life. — Ruqia, Herat province, Afghanistan
“This training gave me a second chance to still have a dream and work for it," says Ruqia, a young trainee with the program.
"The thing I like the most about [it] is that it is social, not individual," she says. "We all work together like a team and share our knowledge. If this vocational training did not exist, I would have nothing to do. This training means a second chance and a comeback from a distressed and frustrated life.”
Related: Weaving Carpets, Building Futures: Skills Training for Girls and Women in Afghanistan
Rupantaran life skills program in Nepal
In South Asia, almost 80 percent of youth aged 15 to 24 aren’t on track to acquire the necessary secondary school-level skills. As the labor market rapidly changes, the majority of youth in the region aren’t learning the vocational and life skills necessary to succeed.
The Rupantaran life skills program for adolescents in Nepal, developed by UNICEF and other partners in collaboration with the government, seeks to close this gap. The 21-week course, delivered over the radio and in-person, offers a mix of social and financial skills training. Sessions cover a variety of topics, from negotiation to goal setting and mental well-being, and are taught by locally based facilitators or peer educators.
Antima, 16, started her own business making and selling samosas and other food items from a small snack shop in Rautahat after taking part in the Rupantaran program.
Sahira, 16, who grew up in a marginalized Muslim community unable to attend school, opened up a tailoring business and now helps support her family.
"I was learning about many different things, things I had no idea about before," Sahira said of the program sessions. "It’s very fulfilling to know that I am using my skills to help boost my family’s finances."
Related: Building Brighter Futures for Girls in Nepal
Youth Learn Skills to Thrive in Today's World with UNICEF's Help
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