Vocational Future for Youth - in Partnership with Plan International

An economic crisis and the COVID-19 pandemic have severely impacted Ecuador. Many young people are unemployed. There is a lack of vocational and educational opportunities for young people to gain a foothold in the job market. In our project, we support young women and men in starting their own businesses. With entrepreneurial knowledge, technical training, and start-up capital, we help them to establish their own companies.

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Project Duration: July 2023 - July 2026

 

Goals:

- Social and economic inclusion of young people

- Improvement of maternal and child health

 

Measures:

- Entrepreneurial training for 220 young people and young adults

- Start-up capital and support for business creation

- Job application training and mentoring for 125 young people seeking employment

- Establishment of two competency centers for digital education

- Health services for 400 pregnant women and mothers with young children

- Workshops for 300 fathers on active fatherhood

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What Awaits Us in Ecuador

In Ecuador, one in five young people is neither in education nor employment. In 2022, this affected 18.5 percent of Ecuadorians aged 15 to 24. The rate is particularly high among young women: 26.5 percent of them are classified as NEETs (Not in Education, Employment, or Training). Among young men, the figure is 11.2 percent. This significant gender disparity is largely due to traditional gender roles, which often result in women taking on responsibilities for household chores, child-rearing, or caring for relatives. Consequently, women are less likely to engage in paid work and are unable to contribute to their families' income.

 

A major challenge for young people in Ecuador is the lack of vocational and educational opportunities, which hampers their professional development and future prospects. Many young women and men would like to start their own businesses but often lack the necessary knowledge and financial resources.

 

In the past three years, the project regions of Cotopaxi and Santa Elena have seen a sharp rise in school dropouts, teenage pregnancies, and chronic malnutrition. This is partly a consequence of the COVID-19 pandemic, which hit Ecuador amidst an existing economic crisis and further exacerbated it. The country's GDP shrank by 7.5 percent in 2020 due to the pandemic.

 

Although the economy is slowly recovering from the pandemic, widespread poverty, especially in rural areas, continues to negatively impact children's development. In the Santa Elena project region, 40 percent of children under five suffer from malnutrition. The causes of this issue include poverty, diarrheal diseases, low birth weight, breastfeeding problems, lack of knowledge about healthy nutrition and disease prevention, and limited access to nutritious food.

 

Our Goals

Through this project, we aim to provide young people in rural areas, particularly young women, with opportunities to actively integrate into the labor market. Since 2017, we have been supporting youth and young adults in the region in starting their own businesses to secure their livelihoods. This project builds on that work. A total of 220 young people and young adults aged 15 to 24 will participate in training to strengthen their professional and entrepreneurial skills. We will provide them with professional advice and start-up capital to support them in founding their own businesses and help them establish these in the market. To improve their chances of finding a job, 125 young women and men will participate in training sessions where they will enhance their soft skills, learn how to write resumes, and master job interviews.

 

Another project goal is to combat the widespread malnutrition of young children and improve maternal and child health. Since malnutrition can begin in the womb and many children are born with low birth weight, we will provide 400 pregnant women with vitamin- and nutrient-rich food. They will also receive health services such as prenatal check-ups, vaccinations, weight and growth monitoring. Special attention is also given to fathers and husbands, who will be engaged through workshops and events on "active fatherhood."

 

The project region includes ten communities in Santa Elena and ten communities in Cotopaxi. A total of 2,000 people will directly participate in the project activities, while nearly 6,000 community members, mostly family members of the participants, will indirectly benefit from the project measures.

Ecuador: Project Activities July 2023 - December 2023

 

Strengthening Youth Life Skills and Employability

With great enthusiasm, more than 180 young people in Cotopaxi and Santa Elena attended the first workshops, where they strengthened their life skills, self-confidence, and leadership abilities. Subsequently, 57 of them participated in training sessions that improved their employment prospects. They learned, for example, how to write resumes and present themselves in job interviews. The youth demonstrated that they consider these trainings crucial for improving their chances in the job market.

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Deepening Professional and Entrepreneurial Skills

In Cotopaxi, 124 young entrepreneurs from the previous project phase participated in further training aimed at improving their production and increasing the income of their businesses. The participants themselves selected the topics of the 20 different training sessions, ensuring that these directly addressed their specific needs. The training topics included pig and guinea pig farming, animal feed production, the making of jams, sweets, potato chips, and empanadas, as well as training in agriculture. Additionally, 10 project participants attended the regional business fair in Cotopaxi, which proved to be very successful for them, as they were able to sell almost all of their products.

 

Support for Pregnant Girls and Young Women

Pregnant women receive important prenatal check-ups as part of the project. To ensure that our activities to promote maternal and child health benefit those who need them most, we identified 200 pregnant girls and young women who are particularly disadvantaged and vulnerable. The following vulnerability criteria were considered in their selection: living in poverty or extreme poverty, lacking a higher education degree, being under 19 years of age, managing their own household, or having another child under two years old.

 

We provide ongoing support to these 200 girls and young women throughout their pregnancy, childbirth, and the first few months thereafter. This support includes providing food for a healthy and sufficient diet, as well as monthly health check-ups for prenatal care. Additionally, they participate in group counseling sessions to improve their knowledge of nutrition, pregnancy, and the postnatal period. These counseling sessions are creatively designed, involving activities like performing small plays and singing together. This approach strengthens group dynamics and promotes active learning. We also work with the expectant fathers on positive fatherhood, focusing on responsibility and equality, as well as the roles of mothers and fathers in caring for a newborn.

 

Raising Awareness About Healthy Nutrition

To highlight the importance of healthy nutrition during pregnancy and breastfeeding, we also collaborate with other local actors working in this field. For example, we are part of the "Ecuador Grows Without Malnutrition" roundtable. Together with our project partners, we organized several events in Cotopaxi on the topic of malnutrition in young children, with a total of 410 participants. In Santa Elena, we held a fair with 212 participants, where we also provided information on healthy child nutrition.​​​