Kids’ House Social and Vocational Center

Project Title : Kids’ House Social and Vocational Center

Goal : To enhance professional integration among children and adolescents from rural areas in Ivory Coast through a vocational, professional and technical training center; While giving offering a lovely home to disadvantaged children.

Objectives :

Objective 1: By December 2023, 350 NEET (Not in Education, Employment and Training) girls and young people in rural areas (15-23years old) will engage in education or training.

Objective 2: By December 2023, 200 girls and youth people from rural areas have access to a formal employment

Objective 3: By December 2023,100 children have access to a safe living place for their development.

Activity
(Main ones)

Partner with local authorities, organizations, institutions, international structures, local businesses to benefit from resources (human, materials, financials and institutional) and extend the scale of the project by touching the maximum of the person in need. (Ongoing)

Start a pilot phase this year (2021) even without the physical center : Ongoing

Build the center (Start February 2022)

Results

An insertion in formal jobs of 50% of learners in entrepreneurship or existing enterprises
The beneficiaries have specific skills in one domain that can enhance their professional insertion chance
The organization is self-funded with the products that will generate the center (vegetables, meat, handicrafts), and also the scholar fees of the advantaged young people who will access the center (sustainability),
50 girls and 50 boys (orphans, victims of abuses, underprivileged) have a safe living place)

Estimated total cost: 23733 Euro (distributed according a construction plan based several stages, budget and time).

Estimated o the start of construction: Late February 2022

What we have:

1000 meter square ( land bought by the NGO)
Centre design/plan (Made by professional architect at a social price of 760 Euro. Paid by the NGO).
3800 Euro (What we have in our bank account)
A co-op vegetable(produce vegetable by using the land, and resell to collect money)
NB: For more information about the project (detailed budget, centre design, plan of construction, partnership, idea or help, please contact us).

THANKS

Statement: According to UNESCO, Cote d’Ivoire is a country where 42% of its population is under 14 years old, and schools remain compulsory from 6-15. This data show how crucial should be the emphasis on education. However, education remains a challenge for the country. A total of 2,153,690 adolescents and young aged 15-24 are illiterate in 2018. It is 933,782 men and 1,219,908 women. While literacy rate is an indicator of the quality of education, Ivory Coast stands as one of the world’s lowest young literacy rate countries. Moreover, more than 50% of the youth population in 2015 did not know how to read and write, with a higher percentage of women (59.3%). And only 4,7 % had continued their education beyond secondary school in 2013.

However, it appears that the most touched by the situation (lack of education) are those living in rural areas (52,4%) and young women (65.1%). In addition, only 7.6 % of rural youth continue to secondary school.

Consequently, the lack/stop of education or poor quality of education impacts youth aged 15 to 24 socio-professional integration. In 2013, more than 35% of the youth population (15-29) were not in education, employment or training (NEET). And when they have access to the labour market, it remains precarious or challenging to access paid jobs. Most of them work informally, 92% from 15-29 (OECD). From a gender perspective, women are most vulnerable due to cultural norms, religious practices, lack of access to education, bias and discrimination. Following by young people living in rural areas, therefore poor education leads to poor employment.

Illiteracy, inactivity, underemployment, poor wages, informal job are what face NEET persons. They can likely become delinquents or easily manipulated in the context of wars. In few words, they represent a threat for themselves and the whole society.

These statistics show how insufficient are the efforts related to youth access to education and professional integration. Indeed, the Ivorian education system lacks the instrument to provide youth with skills to enter the labor market efficiently. The transition school-job or non-school/unskilled to a job (formal and non-precarious) remains ineffective.

While today’s world promotes sustainable development and, above all, an inclusive one, stakeholders (governments, organizations, institutions) should work to make these young people active agents of action, especially in countries like Ivory Coast they represent more than 60% of the population.

In 2016, the Ivorian government made some reforms relatively to the ministry in charge of technical education and professional training (ETFP) to integrate this training into the politic of compulsory school. In 2016, 105.353 learners were inscribed in professional training from Public and private schools in Ivory Coast. With respectively 0.2% for the primary sector (Agricultural), 27, 3% for the secondary sector (Industrial), 72, 5% for the tertiary sector (services). More men in these sectors represent women in the tertiary domains (60.7% against 39, 3% for men). The access to the Private school is by pay fees and for the public (ministry orientation); what about those who can afford it?

Therefore, it is crucial to rethink and improve the learning approach, especially in disadvantaged communities (women and youth in rural areas). Not all children can have a higher education degree or even have the minimum required to access secondary schools. Fortunately, there are also solutions to fill the gap and give the same opportunity for achieving a successful life—there are many ways to reach the top.

Thus, the following paper presents an approach to strengthen the link learning – adequate job among youth in ivory coast, precisely for disadvantaged areas. The project is entitled « redefining learning in disadvantaged communities through a vocational and technical training centre ». It aims at giving skills to enter the labour market

It is a centre that gives vocational training based on children’s passion and considers the country’s social and economic realities and the world essential; it also adjusts the supply and demand for skills. The kind of skills and training are Agriculture, Breeding, Cooking, Pastry, Hairdressing, Sewing, art and dance, and other skills like leadership, entrepreneurship, team and project management, social media use, computer skills. These are daily life jobs and which demand remains high.

Thus, to fight poverty, give access to education, and promote the same opportunity, Kids’ House proposes redefining the learning context for training-based competencies that can lead to jobs.