YouthBuild is a comprehensive program that integrates school, work, social action, leadership development, and personal transformation. In this unique program, unemployed youth create tangible community assets such as housing, community centers, reforested land, and play areas while preparing for employment, studying to complete secondary school, learning to be leaders in their communities, and getting support to make positive change. Since 1994, 76,000 YouthBuild students in the U.S. have built more than 17,000 homes while preparing for jobs and college. The New York Times called YouthBuild “a well-spring of human reclamation.”
YouthBuild International is a subsidiary of YouthBuild USA, Inc. that provides technical assistance, training, consultation, and other resources to governments, bi-lateral and multi-lateral donors, schools, NGOs, and youth groups in the areas of youth training and employment, youth enterprise, NGO capacity building, youth leadership, civic engagement, youth policy, program design, construction, and community revitalization. In the U.S. YouthBuild supports a network of more than 226 independent programs in 44 states, and internationally, YouthBuild has engaged with programs in South Africa, Palestinian Territories, Serbia, Mexico, Israel, Canada, Haiti, Timor Leste, Scotland, and Central America. USAID’s Office of Conflict Management and Mitigation named YouthBuild an “innovative program” which has “shown promise in reaching out to young people who often are left behind in more traditional development efforts.” The book Forces for Good: The Six Practices of High-Impact Nonprofits, features YouthBuild USA as one of the 12 most effective NGOs in the U.S.
YouthBuild International's Areas of Expertise
Youth Livelihood/Microenterprise Development
Hands-on job training is an essential component of the YouthBuild program, and YouthBuild’s emphasis on personal life skills development supports the basic skills necessary for meaningful sustainable livelihoods. In South Africa, YouthBuild’s work with the Umsobomvu Youth Fund (UYF) and the South African Department of Housing is directed, in part, toward getting young people employed in meaningful work. In the U.S., the Department of Labor funds YouthBuild to develop re-entry strategies to employ youthful ex-offenders. In 2008, young people in Haiti and Timor Leste will begin skills training and construction work on USAID-funded infrastructure projects. YouthBuild is launching a project in Central America to engage gang-vulnerable youth in productive, employment-related training. YouthBuild is partnered with the ImagineNations Group (ING) in promoting strategies in 10 countries to build pipelines to employment, especially for marginalized youth and idle, college-educated young people. ING and YouthBuild have assessed youth entrepreneur programs in China, Bangladesh, South Africa, and Israel to gather best practices for global replication through in-country trainings, and a web-based portal for young entrepreneurs. YouthBuild presented a workshop on Enhancing Employability of Youth at the 2004 Mexico Youth Employment Summit (YES), and USAID’s Global Workforce in Transition (GWIT) program identified YouthBuild as an effective youth employment option.
Non-Formal/Complementary Education
For nearly 30 years, YouthBuild has been involved in educating young people who have left the public school system. YouthBuild's coupling of classroom study with hands-on experiential learning enables young people to achieve academic success beyond what may have been expected of them in conventional classrooms. YouthBuild is now implementing a Gates Foundation National Schools Initiative (NSI) to demonstrate YouthBuild's effectiveness as an alternative school model, particularly in preparing marginalized youth for college and sustainable livelihoods. YouthBuild graduates from southern Sudan operate a school in northern Uganda to provide basic education to primary students in refugee camps.
Youth Leadership Development and Civic Engagement
YouthBuild implements one of the largest service learning projects in the U.S. with YouthBuild students logging millions of hours in community revitalization. Youth empowerment and leadership development are central to YouthBuild, with the purpose of supporting personal change and social change simultaneously. In Serbia, YouthBuild partnered on a project designed to cultivate the leadership potential of youth through social action and civic engagement. In Mexico, YouthBuild students are restoring historic buildings and reforesting hurricane-damaged areas. In South Africa, YouthBuild is assisting the Umsobomvu Youth Fund in bringing a youth voice into the governance of the Fund. YouthBuild’s own graduates have incorporated NGOs in Uganda and Sudan. And YouthBuild’s Blueprint for Democracy facilitated one of the largest youth voter registration efforts in U.S. history.
Linking Youth Development and Community Development
YouthBuild students build tangible assets in their communities. The program’s multi-disciplinary design brings school, work, neighborhood revitalization, and personal transformation into a unified approach. In Mexico, young people are engaged in an internationally recognized effort to restore the historic center city, and in Serbia young people developed new NGOs to respond to a range of community needs including AIDS education and inter-ethnic dialogue. Teams of YouthBuild students are working on reconstruction in the Katrina-devastated Gulf Coast.
Youth Worker Training
YouthBuild's training and technical assistance for NGO staff has played an essential role in sustaining youth programs and in supporting NGOs. In Serbia and South Africa, YouthBuild is training youth workers in program design and management. In the U.S. YouthBuild is funded by the U.S. Department of Labor to operate a Youth Development Practitioner Apprenticeship (YDPA) certificate program. This first-in-the-nation program provides professional development to youth workers using a true apprenticeship model of academic study, on-the-job training, and systematic advancement toward professional competence.
NGO Capacity Building
Most of YouthBuild's technical assistance and training is directed toward building the capacity of local organizations to effectively implement youth and community development programs. Internationally, these services have been delivered through partnerships with governments and private funders.
Youth Program Design
YouthBuild has nearly 30 years of experience in designing and implementing community-based education and training programs for young people. YouthBuild’s network of operating programs couples policy with practice and provides a laboratory for ongoing development and innovation in program design and delivery.
YouthBuild’s Capacity and Partners
YouthBuild’s Network
YouthBuild’s vast domestic network of more than 226 experienced operating sites coupled with a well-developed technical assistance and training operation brings a wealth of knowledge and know-how to international projects. The YouthBuild network includes an array of more than 1,200 on-the-ground youth development practitioners, NGO managers, and community development specialists with diverse experience and training. Implementing partners outside the U.S. further contribute to this network of experts.
International and Domestic Project Partners
Contact:
Peter Twichell
617-741-1211
|
