Young Cameroonians are taught marketable leadership, new media, and advocacy skills over an eight month program that culminates in student designed and implemented online advocacy campaigns. The most promising students are then placed in three month internships in their community where they build connections and learn about working for social change. This program introduces young people to marketable technology skills and connects them with potential employers.
The unemployment rate in Cameroon is around 30 percent and the majority of those unemployed are under 35. At the same time, new media skills are becoming more marketable. Without these skills, organizations fighting for human rights, social justice and a variety of other internationally important issues are effectively silenced. Moreover, for profit companies in Cameroon are beginning to realize the value in having an online presence and marketing scheme.
YAN has identified an unfulfilled need in the job market, and trains young people in the skills necessary to meet that need. In this way we hope to both tackle the unemployment issue and provide much needed IT assistance in Cameroon.
This had the potential to not only provide jobs to young people, but also to help Cameroonian organizations leverage technology in order to fight for social justice internationally.
This project has provided additional documentation in a PDF file (projdoc.pdf).
