Empowered Youth with Sponsors and partners with partners
As Huguka Dukore Akazi Kanoze (HDAK) timespan draws closer to an end and in light of project accomplishments both at youth and system level, HDAK has conducted a series of 5 Learning Review workshops and 4 legacy events held at provincial level that brought together different stakeholders, to collaboratively reflect on and celebrate together the project successes, lessons learned and discuss how to sustain the project’s impact beyond HDAK.
The National Legacy event, that will take place in Kigali on October 28th 2021, will bring together the learnings of these events and HDAK’s 5-year journey of youth workforce skills development and employment system strengthening. It will do so through the voices of youth beneficiaries and implementing partners as well as through testimonies of central level government partners and private sector, whose experience with and commitment to HDAK speak of the legacy of the project.
To name but a few accomplishments to date, USAID HDAK has trained over 40,000 youth
across 25 districts of Rwanda on work readiness skills using the Work Ready Now & Be Your Own Boss (WRN/BYOB) methodology and provided other employment support interventions, resulting in 70% employment rate, six months following their graduation. At system level, HDAK has been working with Rwanda Polytechnic and Rwanda TVET Board (RTB) to develop and integrate several skills development materials, tools and approaches to improve TVET and workforce development delivery systems in Rwanda.
As part of its systemic and sustainability approach to youth workforce development, HDAK introduced Youth Development Alliance (YDA) that is locally owned and locally driven in 11 districts. Additionally, HDAK also supported Rwanda Polytechnic and the Private Sector to develop the In-company Instructor (ICI) training materials that facilitates a “win-win workplace learning”. Furthermore, HDAK supported the development of TVET Level 2, with a pilot of six (6) new agriculture-based programs in eight (8) TVET Schools.
“The purpose of this event is to disseminate to the wide audiences, the project’s accomplishments achieved at youth and system levels through strong collaboration among all relevant actors. We want to present HDAK’s best practices and learnings through recent studies, and transition paths for sustainability,” said Alejandra Bonifaz, Chief of Party of USAID HDAK.
USAID HDAK is a five-year (2016-2021) USAID project, implemented by Education
Development Center (EDC), in partnership with 21 Implementing partners working in
close collaboration with the Rwanda Private Sector and Government Partners, with an aim to reach 40,000 vulnerable youth with market-relevant employability skills and links to employment.(End)