Most young people in rural areas are caught up in a cycle of poverty. There have not enough employment opportunities for economic development. Empowering Youth to Work focuses on Jamshoro district in Sindh province and Layyah district in Punjab province, both located along the Indus River. Let’s take a look at their most relevant problems.

To inspire the Pakistan team to tackle these problems a very strong expert team was selected to analyze the local context and understand the challenges in depth.

The team of experts looked into solutions from all over the world and made a shortlist of those that are relevant and replicable to Pakistan set up inclusive sustainable rural Hubs. Here is the shortlist of solutions selected for Pakistan.

4 solutions from Nepal were chosen for a learning exchange: READ Centre, Rockstart, Daayitwa and Hamri Bahini – The Green Angels. Key persons from the EYW project were selected to conform our learning group.

We designed a joint tailor-made program to visit in practice the initiatives and listen to open stories of all participants like the trainers, local goverment, project leads, women and community leaders.

ROCKSTART Impact has accelerated already 29 Nepali companies out of which 20 have secured investment pledges and raised over 3 million euros in investments since 2014.

We learnt about a specific program, WREAP, created by Daayitwa; it is based on a multi-stakeholders approach, involving the private sector, local government, and local community leaders and members.

READ Centres are community based libraries and much more. They make sure that community ownership starts from the day 1, that it can be a space where people can relate to all over Nepal. And the outputs are stunning: 83% of the women in Nepal report that their confidence has increased. Their decision-making power in healthcare, family planning, and children's education has increased. One in five women are now leaders in their communities. With cooperative savings have started their own micro-enterprises; in total 197 for-profit enterprises were launched to sustain READ Centres.

Hamri Bahini the Green Angels Social Enterprise fights the lack of respectable livelihood opportunities for women by creating green and respectable employment for them within Nepal, and connecting their products with the markets. They use technology and focus social, economic and environmental sustainable development. The enterprise has already provided decent jobs and livelihood opportunities for more than 550 women in need.

As a result of our visit, we consolidated an action plan with ideas on how to implement what we had experienced in Nepal into the local context of Pakistan.

Three months later (in January 2018), with more than 500 youth attended the opening ceremony, the launch of the first Innovation Hub in Layyah was a successful next step in empowering youth for their economic development. And another Hub was opened in Jamshoro. Both provide a place to explore and develop business ideas linking with markets, companies and micro finance institutions.

Three representatives of READ Centre, Daayitwa and Rockstart Impact from Nepal visited Pakistan to exchange experiences with Oxfam Pakistan, partners, government representatives and the young people of one of the communities. In a 6-day programme they visited the new projects that the learning group started and shared suggestions and new ideas.