Education Ghana Project #8630

Support 5000 young graduates to be self-employed

by Totally Youth

Project Report | Oct 6, 2015
THIS IS WHAT WE HAVE ACHIEVED TOGETHER - THANK YOU

By Eva Lokko | CEO

It has always been maintained that pictures speak louder than words. So let me use pictures to say a big thank you to for contributing directly to our call under this project and indirectly to this project, under our other projects and micro-projects.

It all started in 2011 and from August to December 2011, we were able to raise a total of US$6,582.00 under this project. This project also gave us our first recurrent donors, and some of them are still making monthly donations as themselves or anonymously. With your benevolent donations over the years and your continuing support we have raised a total of US$12,887.25 to date for our other projects, micro-projects and this our mother-project – Support 5000 Young Graduates To Be Self-Employed”. We are grateful to you and GlobalGiving for this achievement.

So what have we achieved together with your on-going donations? The attached pictures tell the general story of our successes as a team.

Starting with a handful of participants with only our ICT Centre and Knowledge Space, our participants grew in number and our programmes expanded to include our Office Space, Fashion Centre, Beauty Centre, Event Space and our Catering Centre. It has been a great journey with numerous challenges and our one-off, recurrent and new donors helped us to meet these challenges, to get us where we are today. Thank you.

Unfortunately, the journey seems to be unending since the number of graduates produced annually, is now over 300,000. Moreover the number of graduates that get into full employment still stands at 5,000 per annum. 90,000 are from tertiary institutions with only a few being business-minded while the majority is without employable skills. Many of the few who try to go into business get very little or no help at all. This re-enforces our concept of “Youth Creating Jobs For Youth” which we have tried and tested with success. The unemployed youth creating jobs for other unemployed youth through our adopted practical approach is the only way to speed up the process of getting more unemployment youth into jobs and self-employment.

Consequently, under this project – “Support 5,000 Young Graduates To Be Self-Employed Self-Employment”, we developed several projects including “Stop Youth Poverty”; “Save Homeless Girls From Poverty”; and “Girls ICT Weekend Club”, in addition to our personalized micro-projects to support individual unemployed youth. We have also introduced our career and business facilitation programmes to facilitate youth careers and businesses by giving them access to our facilities to ensure sustainability in their jobs and businesses. Our approach is holistic and practical and we have helped so many needy and vulnerable youth from 2010 to date and still going because of your benevolence.

When you donate to “Support 5,000 Young Graduates To Be Self-Employed” you are simultaneous donating to all the projects under its umbrella. We need your continuing support on a timely basis, to move us into sustainability, so we can reach our target of supporting 5,000 unemployed graduates into jobs and business. We have been bedeviled by the unfortunate nose-dives and yo-yoing of our cedi. Our budgets do not make sense after a month, since market prices are unpredictable except for their tendency of going up. Timely support is therefore the only way to give maximum support for us to gain self-reliance.

We are therefore requesting for continuing support from both old and new donors who like us believe that youth poverty leads to crime, fraud, riot and social vices which adversely affect families and communities. We are appealing for to existing and new recurrent donors to consider donating the following amounts per month:

# of DONORS MONTHLY AMOUNT

10 - US$ 100

20 - US$ 50

25 - US$ 40

50 - US$ 20

100 - US$ 10

We will of course be grateful for any amount that any donor finds convenient. We are appreciative of the general economic situation and we will accept any amount as one-off or recurrent donation. We only plead that such donations should come on time to ensure that we do get to sustainability sooner than later.

Thank you for being with us throughout our journey and for staying or joining us to get nearer to our target of supporting 5,000 unemployed graduates into jobs and self-employed. We are truly grateful.

www.globalgiving.org/projects/totallyyouth

Links:

Totally Youth Official Website

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May 26, 2015
We Need Your Support

By Eva Lokko | CEO

Some of our Incubator-Alumni

We Need Your Support

Currently, our umbrella programme – Support 5000 Young Young Graduates to be Self-Employed, has only one donor – an anonymous recurrent donor, who has set up a standing order to donate on a fixed date every month to the programme. We are eternally grateful to this recurrent donor. Donations to this programme ensure as a minimum, the provision of allowances (transportation and meals), to participants.

Allowances to participants are the most critical items in all our programmes and projects. This is because majority of the beneficiary groups that we serve are poor and needy youth who cannot afford the cost of daily transportation to and from Totally Youth, to access all the support that we can offer. They are also unable to pay for the daily lunch while they are on the premises. Allowances may seem like "small" amounts but without them, we cannot use the "big" amounts to implement our programmes and projects. We have been unable help many candidates, due to this factor.

These two items are daily recurrent costs that we need urgent support for. We are therefore grateful to all our past donors and will appreciate their return to support this programme. We are appealing to all our readers and past donors to join our invaluable anonymous donor. We trust that:

Our recurrent donor will continue to support us until we become self-reliant
Our past donors will consider becoming recurrent donors for as little as US$10 or any amount of their choice
All our donors and readers will help us attract new recurrent and seasonal donors by sharing the plight of needy unemployed youth with them and giving them our programme address on Globalgiving
That anybody reading our reports and programme details will consider becoming a recurrent or seasonal donor.

The number of graduates produced every year is now around 90,000. With only an estimated 10,000 getting into permanent employment, the situation keeps worsening every year. If our programme succeeds, based on our concept of “Youth Creating Jobs For Youth”, we can make a big dent in the unemployment figures. Youth businesses are bound to employ more youth than adults. Peer recruitments will therefore increase, especially at the community level. This is a formula guaranteed to succeed and you will be part of the success story. We need your support. THANK YOU.

Support Needy Unemployed Youth Into Self-Employment

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Feb 4, 2015
BUSINESS FACILITATION KEEPS PROJECT ALIVE

By Eva Lokko | CEO

We continue to fight with all we have to continue helping as many unemployed youth as possible. This is because of our strong belief that if you support one youth to set up a business, you will be helping a whole lot of unemployed youth to gain jobs. We also know for a fact that providing gainful jobs to unemployed youth reduces the incidence of social vices and crime. We are therefore grateful to all our donors, especially the recurrent ones, for supporting us to implement this project.

To date we have received US$7,770 out of the US$100,000 needed to start and sustain the project. We have however been able to forge ahead, through the funds raised for new projects as well as micro-projects under this project. Feedback indicates that our alumni are all doing well on their own now. We are still in touch with many of them.

To keep the project going, we have included a new support modality called “Business Facilitation” where we take on board a category of participants who can pay a fixed minimal amount for the TY facilities they use (based on ability to pay). They get everything else free. This helps to continue to take on needy participants who cannot pay registration and enrolment fees as well as those who can only pay these nominal fees through scheduled payments. But we still have to waive payment of these nominal fees for others. Together with the funds raised and what TY has on hand, the project is doing all it can not to turn away needy applicants.

Under this business facilitation modality, we now have on board a two-man business team, which organizes writers’ workshops for young and upcoming youth. This is ongoing and they have employed 3 youth. We also have three young individuals coming together to start a restaurant. They will start in mid February 2015 and they will employ 6 youth. These two start-up businesses alone are thereby providing jobs for 13 unemployed youth. This supports our concept of Youth Creating Jobs For Youth. So with the support of our donors we have confirmed the veracity of the concept.

We have many alumni now doing well in their own businesses or as employees in reputable companies. Recently, one of our alumni – Emma, has become a recurrent donor. And of course there is Felix, who has now set up his own fashion business in the US and has employed some youth. So you see, this project is even having an impact on unemployment in the US. We wish to say a perpertual THANK YOU to our Recurrent Donors for staying with us through thick and thin. We are grateful.

The sustainability of the project however depends on timely and regular donations in view of the fact that budgeted purchasing power depreciates with time. We will therefore be grateful indeed, if:

Our recurrent donors continue to support us until we become sustainable
Our current donors could consider becoming recurrent donors
All our donors could help us attract new recurrent and seasonal donors
That anybody reading our reports and project details could consider becoming a recurrent or seasonal donor

We are grateful for all the help we have received and look forward to those to come. We are young or were young once. We know how it feels. Help one unemployed graduate today. Please spread the news.

THANK YOU

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