Programs: YouthBuild
Facts
Announced:
November 30, 2010
Category:
Job Training and Life Skills
Grant Amount: $1,580,000
Disbursed to Date: $230,781
Grant Objective:
To build two of 12 YouthBuild's Haiti Rebuilding academies that will provide vocational training in construction work and leadership.
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YouthBuild participants on a construction site in Haiti.
The Clinton Bush Haiti Fund awarded a $1,580,000 grant to YouthBuild International to fund the construction of the first two of 12 planned YouthBuild centers in Leogane and Port-au-Prince. Not only will this put young people back to work in Haiti but it will give them the skills necessary to rebuild their country.
The centers will serve approximately 1,320 at-risk youth (ages 16–28) by providing them with vocational training in construction and by helping them to learn leadership skills for the future. The grant will also be used to provide a two-to-one match of trainees’ savings contributions, support leadership training for the Build Back Better Youth Corps, and provide six months of follow-up support as trainees seek viable employment opportunities or pursue self-employment.
YouthBuild has broken ground on the first 9000-sq.-ft. training center in Leogane, the epicenter of the earthquake where nearly 90 percent of the buildings were destroyed. This first of the 12 centers is on track to be complete and fully equipped for training by early 2011, when the project's local implementing partner IDEJEN (Haitian Out of School Livelyhood Initiative) plan to start recruiting staff and students. CBHF funding enabled YouthBuild to get on the ground quickly even as other projects in Haiti have stalled due to funding delays.
The IDEJEN/YouthBuild project is also serving an unmet need by engaging local builders in the construction of the training center at a time when Haitian contractors are unfortunately largely being shut out of reconstruction contracts. Work on this first center has even included young people from the community. With CBHF support, the IDEJEN/YouthBuild program will continue to employ Haitian builders and youth as the program expands.
Why We Invested in YouthBuild
Clinton Bush Haiti Fund's grant to YouthBuild reflects our commitment to investing in Haiti's human capital through vocational training — especially for youth and in the construction sector.
Transforming Lives and Livelihoods
With support from the Clinton Bush Haiti Fund, YouthBuild and IDEJEN seek to achieve the following:
- Construction of the first two of 12 planned centers.
- Provide a two-to-one match of trainees' savings contributions.
- Support leadership training for the Build Back Better Youth Corps.
- Provide six months of follow-up support as trainees seek viable employment opportunities or pursue self-employment.
About YouthBuild International
The mission of YouthBuild International (YBI) is to unleash the intelligence and positive energy of socially-excluded youth in transforming their lives and rebuilding their communities.
YouthBuild International is building a global network of programs dedicated to reaching, inspiring, preparing and connecting out of school, unemployed young people to viable employment opportunities. In YouthBuild programs, young people, ages 16–28, acquire basic education, job readiness, technical training, and leadership skills while building permanent community assets such as housing, community centers, schools, playgrounds and 'green' infrastructure. YouthBuild adaptation and replication activities are now unfolding in 16 countries.
In the U.S., YouthBuild supports a network of 272 independent programs in 44 states engaging 10,000 young people each year. Since 1994, more than 84,000 YouthBuild students have produced over 18,000 units of low-income housing. YouthBuild has received over $755 million in federal support and has leveraged an additional $1.2 billion in local support for program operations.
President Obama recently increased YB funding by $50 million, identifying it as the single national youth development program likely to show immediate impact on the rolls of unemployed young adults. YouthBuild runs the largest, national community service program in the U.S. which targets, low income, unemployed, youth, 40% of who are adjudicated and re-entering communities from locked facilities. Since, 1994 YB students and graduates have logged millions of service hours in a full range of service projects in urban, rural and tribal settings.
For more information, visit www.youthbuildinternational.org.
