This project develops the capacity of vulnerable Indonesian youth who are living on the streets, are school dropouts, reside in areas of poverty, have no access to jobs, or are victims of disaster. Through an intensive 100 days program built around organic farming, 45 youth will be provided with knowledge and skills that may enable economic self-sufficiency. This program also includes training in basic life skills such as leadership, marketing, English language, computer literacy, etc.
Poverty, lack of skills and lack of economic opportunities have generated high number of unemployment in Indonesia. The number of youth that live in the street increases exponentially year on year. This creates the risk of being trapped in a cycle of poverty, drugs, crime and HIV/AIDS. These vulnerable youth will never succeed in the conventional formal education system.
The Learning Farm was set up specifically to provide young men and women with disadvantaged or traumatic backgrounds a set of skills and tools to regain their self-confidence, to reinsert themselves productively in society and to potentially become leaders in their own communities. We use organic farming as our teaching medium.
To date we already graduated 426 vulnerable youth. Using 2012 data, we have a 81% success rate with our alumni finding work either in the farming or non-farming sector. In the long run, large numbers of vulnerable youth will continue to be taught skills to make them economically self sufficient, reducing unemployment rates, increasing food security and ultimately giving young people the confidence to return to the increasingly abandoned agricultural sector.
This project has provided additional documentation in a PDF file (projdoc.pdf).
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