FMR 20 33 Skills training for youth by Barry Sesnan, Graham Wood, Marina L Anselme and Ann Avery RET/Hilde Lemey RET/Hilde

Providing skills training for youth should be a key Ockenden International has Apprenticeship developed a system to help young training in component in promoting secure livelihoods for would-be entrepreneurs evaluate the refugee camps financial landscape, observe money in Bajaur agency, refugees. Young people must be given the chance to circulation and assess existing and Peshawar, potential markets. develop the practical, intellectual and social skills Pakistan

that will serve them throughout their lives. Training must not reinforce traditional gender roles that impose oung people in conflict-torn No market demand, no restraints on livelihood opportunities. states – including genocide training It may be possible to develop more survivors in Rwanda, AIDS-rav- Y neutral training opportunities. The aged families in Uganda and ex-child There is often a conflict between the trades of carpenter, electrician and combatants in West Africa – have livelihood skills young people want to blacksmith are among those usually heavy responsibilities thrust upon learn, what they need to learn for sus- considered only appropriate for men them. Whilst they hope for a bright tainable future employment and what while mat making and weaving are future – a good job, a family, fulfill- is currently in demand in labour mar- more often regarded as women’s ment and respect – they often have to kets. Youth must tailor their activities. Agencies must consider put their own future on hold to sup- ambitions to market realities. One of the degree to which certain vocations port their families. Vocational training the authors (Barry Sesnan) has worked may be culturally acceptable in is often their most practical option. with young people on a ‘value-added specific contexts and therefore the This article assesses the skills youth approach’: first seeing what products basis for secure livelihoods. A need to develop secure livelihoods and services people are paying for female carpenter may be able to and suggests how skills learning and and then imagining what added value practical opportunities should be the potential entrepreneur could add earn a living in Uganda but not in organised. at little risk. In Sudan and Uganda Afghanistan. 34 Skills training for youth FMR 20

should also be taught basic education needs and avoid one-size-fits-all tem- “Youth want something that and life skills. These include reading, plates. pulls them into the future, not writing, numeracy, science, artistic just a cow and a garden. Just expression and handicrafts, landmine Skills delivery barely earning a living won’t awareness, HIV/AIDS awareness, gen- substitute for the exciting der-based violence, environmental Skills training programmes can be lifestyle of the combatant – won’t protection, civic responsibility, human organised, presented and packaged in keep them from rejoining armed rights, resolving conflicts, personal exciting and challenging ways, even in forces when that seems again an hygiene, safety and good parenting. a camp-based situation. It is important attractive option.”1 While it may not be possible to teach for humanitarian agencies to: all of these in all situations, efforts If self-employment is the aim, then should be made to link those most ■ stress that learning is a life-long agencies also need to provide business appropriate to the vocational skills process in order to counter the per- training in areas such as bookkeeping, being taught. ception that a young refugee’s profit and loss accounting, market hope for a better future ends with expansion, marketing and product dis- Youth who acquire a good mix of the formal education he/she play. Every programme must take into practical skills and conceptual under- receives: they need to realise they account market opportunities and standing can more easily adapt to can independently explore many potential. Concrete possibilities for changes in their work, develop profes- diverse paths to enhanced putting skills training to income-gen- sionally and cope with the evolution knowledge and skills erating use must be assessed of the market for their services. In all ■ deliver training, wherever possible, realistically. The rule should be sim- cases training should be linked to the to younger women and girls in ple: no market demand, no training. social and work context in which the their communities: men are much young person expects to find him/her- more likely to be able to access Intellectual skills self, whether in the host country, the centre-based training which may country of origin or resettlement. As far as possible, adolescent refugees take them away from home for Programmes must respond to specific in vocational training programmes considerable periods of time

■ provide care for the children or sib- lings of young women in order to promote regular attendance

■ use a wide range of information technologies such as radio, tape recorders, CDs and computers: in Tanzania and Pakistan the Foundation for the Refugee Education Trust (RET) has provided computers to give teenagers Internet access to transcend the borders imposed by poverty and isolation

■ replicate experience in Sudan and Pakistan whereby young refugees benefit from apprenticeship schemes with artisans in accessible nearby towns: agencies should monitor and supervise to ensure that young trainees are being taught and not simply exploited

■ explore scope for helping both young refugees and local teenagers: in 2002 RET supported a pro- gramme in a transit camp at Jembe, Sierra Leone, which combined train- ing (in carpentry, bakery, tailoring, crocheting, soap making and tie- dyeing) with sports and other activities to reinforce confidence and social interaction skills. For the

Pre-vocational training – carpentry workshop in Jembe camp, Sierra Leone RET/Tim Brown RET/Tim FMR 20 Skills training for youth 35

local youth it had the added advan- Those in protracted refugee situations his friends, Abdinoor Ali Sigat tage of giving them experience of also need the hope – as well as the started a private business in the alternatives to hazardous work in skills – that training can provide. Hagadera camp market with three the local diamond mines. computers and a small generator, offering training on six different Barry Sesnan is an educationist and ■ realise that project development computer programmes to an aver- founder of the NGO Echo Bravo. must involve consultation with age of 40 students at any time. Email: [email protected] young people; older people should Abdinoor reports that business is not make decisions on their behalf. good, with a high demand from Graham Wood is director of policy young refugees. He said they and at Ockenden International Tools and credit their families find various ways to (www.ockenden.org.uk). Email: pay for this training – which they [email protected] Lack of tools and credit is a major believe will improve their future obstacle to practising newly acquired 2 prospects. Marina L Anselme is Educational skills. There are several approaches to Programme Development overcoming these constraints. Some Manager for the Foundation for agencies provide trainees with a Conclusion the Refugee Education Trust starter kit and require them to earn As skills training is often perceived as (www. refugeeeducationtrust.org). the right to own the tools provided by something of a luxury in an emer- Email: [email protected] gradually paying back a cash sum gency context it has often been equivalent to their value. Those who difficult to persuade donors to fund have chosen to run microcredit pro- Ann Avery coordinates the team programmes. Even in more stable situ- grammes have learned that on education for youth in emer- ations, funding is problematic. As microcredit is best provided by an gencies convened by the RET for with all forms of education, there is agency quite separate from the one the Interagency Network for no quick fix and short-term funding providing training. A third alternative Education in Emergencies (INEE: often fails to allow for the types of is for a resource centre to supply a www.ineesite.org). programme development suggested warehouse of vocational tools that above. There are promising signs, may be loaned or rented to graduates. The authors and INEE are keen to further devel- however, that donors and agencies are Whatever the choice, inter-agency op standards and good practice in skills starting to take more interest in pro- training for youth. If you have experiences to coordination is vital to avoid the risk grammes for youth in situations of share, please contact Ann Avery. Email: that different schemes and conditions [email protected] return and reconstruction. either confuse the beneficiaries or 1. Interview with Irma Specht, formerly of ILO give them scope to play one off Provision of skills training, backed up InFocus Programme on Crisis Response and against the other. Reconstruction. by intellectual and life skills, is an essential part of any economic recov- 2. Unpublished paper based on research with In Dadaab, Kenya, with a loan from young refugees in Dadaab, with Care International ery strategy. The earlier this training CARE’s Community Revolving Fund in Kenya and the University of British Columbia, is introduced into the refugee context Vancouver. For more information, email Liz and additional capital raised from the more effective it is likely to be. Cooper at [email protected]

Interested in participating as one strategy – be effective in individuals and agencies working in a panel on refugee and the refugee context? with displaced people. Ideally, the panel will be a mix of academics, IDP livelihoods? 2. Examples of effective and ineffec- practitioners, policy makers, govern- tive practice in relation to the ment representatives and forced At the IASFM conference, 9-13 promotion of refugee livelihoods migrants. January 2005 in São Paulo, Brazil, (research, papers, case-studies). we would like to organise a panel on 3. Various livelihood approaches Please contact Carrie Conway (con- the livelihood strategies of forced and methodologies and debate [email protected]) if you are migrants and the importance of over their use. interested in participating or would understanding these in the develop- like to share your ideas. ment of solutions. The panel 4. Is the debate over discourse hin- discussion would come under sub- dering progess? The IASFM conference will focus on theme 1 on ‘Solutions: durable or 5. UNHCR’s role – help or hin- the search for solutions to forced temporary?’ drance? migration. Visit www.iasfm.org for 6. Livelihoods and cross-cutting full details. All correspondence con- Possible areas of discussion themes such as HIV/AIDS, youth cerning the conference should be to: are: and gender. Heidi El-Megrisi, IASFM Secretariat, c/o RSC, QEH, 21 St Giles, Oxford 1. Should self-reliance strategies be OX1 3LA, UK. Email: heidi.el- targeted and implemented for The aim of the discussions would be [email protected]. Fax: +44 refugees and displaced people? to lead to increased sharing, lessons (0)1865 270721. For example, can microfinance – learned and future collaboration of