Employability and soft skills for vulnerable youth

Dear donor,

Greetings from Fundación Acción Joven!  We are very pleased to share with you the positive results we have obtained with the Youth Employability Program during the first semester of 2018! 

We launched the 6^th edition of the Youth Employability Program in February 2018, with the beginning of the school year. In the first semester of 2018 we exceeded our annual goal of impacting a minimum of 450 vulnerable youth through our trainings, participatory workshops, and company visits.

So far, a total of six public high schools have participated in the Program, resulting in a total of 593 tenth and eleventh grade students benefiting from the activities. This youth have received 5 participatory workshops, talks, and participated in at least one company visit. Additionally, 80 students from the vulnerable communities of Pavas and Puntarenas have engaged in professional internships at Hilton Hotels, and received specific training in the area of hospitality.

We are very proud to have reached our yearly goal in only six months and look forward to a second semester full of activities. During the remaining six months of 2018, eleven other high schools will receive the contents of the Employability Program, resulting in 275 additional beneficiaries.

By the end of the school year we expect to have impacted 868 public high school students, doubling the initial projection of 450 beneficiaries.

This wouldn´t have been possible without your generous support and willingness to collaborate with our organization.  On behalf of our organization and of Costa Rican youth we thank you for investing in the creation of more and better opportunities for youth.

Kind regards,

Links:

• http://www.accionjoven.org

The first four months of the school year (February - May) have been full of exiting opportunities for our youth.  The Youth Employability Progam´s participatory workshops lounched in almost half of the 17 high schools FAJ is working in.  This means, that more than 200 eleventh and tenth grade students have been recivieng intensive training with the objective of strengthening their abilities for employability.

The participants have been developing their soft skills, learning about communication, networking and personal branding, ellaborating their resumes, participating in job interview drills, and developing their life plans with short, mid and longterm personal and professional goals.  We have had lots of fun in our workshops, where we use a participatory methodology to build knowledge and strengthen group cohesion. We reflect, discuss and debate in order to generate criteria and stimulate in the participants the capacity to understand the context,  plan for their future and pursue their dreams.

All of the classes that participated in the trainnings and workshops closed the module by with a company visit.  Groups of 25 students from each of the high schools spent a morning in some of the private companies that integrate our network of partners, and learned more about the requirements to access the formal job market. Business such as Jonh Deere, Hilton Hotels, ACOBO Financial Group, and Intel, opened their doors and volunteered their employees to spend a morning talking with our students and showing them what it means to be a part of a private company.

Company visits represent a valuable opportunity for students that are about to conclude their secondary education.  They allow the teenagers to understand the needs of the private sector regarding human resources, to listen to testimonials of employees that have been able to advance within the company through education, to ask questions, and to start visualizing themselves in similar professional environments.

Thank you for your valuable support! Your generous contribution makes us stronger and allows us to continue opening new opportunities for costarican youth!