Vulnerable youth who lack access to opportunities to develop critical skills needed for employment are at risk of engaging in crime, gang activity and drugs. Although some employment and livelihoods opportunities exist, Technical Vocational Education and Training (TVET) institutions often do not provide vulnerable youth with appropriate technical and soft skills that align with employment opportunities, nor do they offer access to quality training, job placement services and jobs.
To break this negative cycle, Creative strengthened the private TVET system while enhancing citizen security through the Technical Vocational Education and Training Strengthening for At-Risk Youth (TVET SAY) program in Nicaragua, with support from the CARANA Corporation. The program supported a cadre of at-risk youth, both on the Pacific and the Caribbean coasts, with vocational skills, life skills, work readiness skills, and soft skills training that they need to become capable employees and entrepreneurs.
The national program strengthened eight TVETs and developed and bolstered five TVET networks with the capabilities, tools and resources to provide at-risk youth with quality services that empowered them with high-quality, demand-driven training so they could get a good job and launch a successful career. It did so in part by mobilizing Nicaragua’s private sector with win-win opportunities whereby business gain productive employees, and at-risk youth find new opportunities.
By facilitating access to high-quality, relevant technical training including demand-driven curricula, and providing psychosocial and family support for at-risk youth in search of a more promising future, the program prepared them with the job-focused skills needed to become contributing members of their communities.