“We want to learn computer. We want to learn electronics. Our thinking and our ideas cannot develop staying in this camp.” Ethnic Karen refugee youth from Burma in the Umpiem refugee camp in Thailand, June 2006

Young people aged 15 to 24 years make up around 20% of the world’s 40 million-plus refugees and displaced persons. The majority of refugees are in protracted situations that last an average of 17 years. Despite the great number of young people in need, they are largely ignored by the international community in humanitarian and conflict settings. Few programmes exist for those who are now teenagers and never went to school, or for those who need secondary education or vocational skills training. The Women's Refugee Commission's research and advocacy project, Tapping the Potential of Displaced Youth, aims to increase international attention and support for the educational and job training needs of displaced young women and men worldwide through research and creating educational and market assessment tools.

Problems addressed

• Conflict and displacement disrupts the transmission of livelihoods knowledge and resources to younger generations.
• Young people’s catch-up education and vocational training needs are underfunded in relief and reconstruction initiatives.
• Without opportunities to learn and work, young people are left idle, frustrated and more at risk.

“Income-generating activities are critical. If not, people in the camps will be socialised into dependency.” Jesuit Refugee Service representative, North Darfur, June 2006.

Objectives

• To increase the scope, scale and effectiveness of educational and job training programmes targeting displaced young people through a three-pronged approach of research, tool development and advocacy.
• Long-term goal: to ensure that displaced young women and men are equipped with the skill set necessary to find safe, dignified work, whether they return to their country of origin, settle in the country where they are living as refugees or resettle in a third country.

Youth as beneficiaries

Research and advocacy for displaced young people who require education and skills training services.

Youth as partners

• Fifteen-member youth advisory committee (18 to 24 years) from conflict-affected countries.
• Youth to participate in research.
• Youth self-assessment in all skill-building programmes is recommended. Young people should be given the tools to think critically about the selection of training programmes and possible job opportunities.

Process

The Displaced Youth Advocacy Programme started in October 2008.

• Since then global desk research and field assessments in five countries to gather young people’s views of their needs and recommendations on ways to address them have been conducted. The five country case studies are: Liberia, Uganda, Sudan, Jordan and Thailand.
• The programme has partnered with operational agencies to test promising practices that can be replicated and taken to scale.
• Convert lessons learned into advocacy briefs, guidelines and tools for donor agencies and humanitarian workers. displaced young people’s educational and job training needs.

Results

• Comprehensive understanding of what effective programmes and policies exist, what is missing and what is needed to prepare young people for safe, dignified work in existing labor markets and markets where they will likely end up after displacement.
• Practitioners, donor agencies and policy-makers have access to a range of resource tools (concrete, accessible and relevant) enabling them to implement and assess quality, appropriate educational and skills building programmes for displaced youth.
• The number of young people reached by quality educational and job training programmes increases dramatically, due to explicit policies and/or priorities on the part of UN agencies, major practitioner organisations and donor agencies and governments.

Lessons learned

• Young people consistently expect that participation in vocational training will increase their capacity to find employment or self-employment opportunities and achieve greater self-reliance. Yet, research in Northern Uganda has found that programme objectives may differ from participants’ objectives, leading to disappointment and frustration.
• Continuing to teach the same vocational skills in the same region is leading to labour supply saturation in some industries. Market observation is the first step in understanding what goods and services are supplied and demanded in the community. Market information should be incorporated into each stage of vocational training programming to improve design and, increase employment opportunities.
• Catch-up education combined with skills training should include transferable skills, such as information and communication technology, financial literacy and entrepreneurship (even when training for wage employment).
• Many conflict-affected youth employ multiple livelihood strategies from day to day and may have to rely on more than one skill to maintain an income.
• In many conflict and post-conflict countries, co-ordination and information sharing among the humanitarian community around youth issues must be strengthened and systematised.

Potential challenges

• Gender self-selection into different skills areas can perpetuate gender inequalities in incomes and social status. Implementers need to avoid reinforcing the pattern by actively coaching young people towards new aspirations.
• In many conflict and post-conflict countries, there is a very small formal market and it can be difficult to connect graduates to employers.
• After participating in a programme, many young people don’t have opportunities to practice skills learned in vocational training, for example through internships or apprenticeships.
• Given how dynamic and fluid a conflict can be, the likely futures and locations of displaced young people are often unknown.

For further information contact:

info@wrccommission.org