This year, on 15th July, the world came together to commemorate World Youth Skills day. It is a day set aside to celebrate the strategic importance of equipping young people with skills for employment, decent work, and entrepreneurship. It provides a unique opportunity for dialogue between young people, technical and vocational education, and training (TVET) institutions, firms, employers’ and workers’ organizations, policy makers and development partners.

Highlighting the ever-increasing significance of skills as the world is embarking on a transition towards a sustainable model of development is a matter of great importance. FAWE is currently implementing various programs targeting the youth such as the Make Way Program (advocacy for Sexual Reproductive Health Rights for young people), Malala Fund (Regional Advocacy programme support) and Mastercard Foundation (Scholar’s entrepreneurship activities). The Make Way Program targets the community members through lobby and advocacy and conducts community dialogues to advocate for community acceptance of Sexual and Reproductive Health (SRH) services to all youth including the most marginalized. It also targets duty bearers who are asked to support policies, laws and guidelines that create an environment that will advocate for SRHR for all, especially those marginalized. Under Mastercard Foundation, FAWE Rwanda is implementing entrepreneurship training, small grants, and technical support to 45 scholars and 138 alumni implementing entrepreneurship projects.

This year, to commemorate the World Youth Skills day, FAWE through her Rwanda chapter trained 25 young scholars and alumni of the Mastercard Scholars’ program on SRHR and entrepreneurship Skills. Girls being in control of their reproductive health rights translates to better social economic lives and they are more equipped to make informed decisions. FAWE hosted the two-day training that brought together key stakeholders including FAWE Alumni, Technical Vocational Education Training (TVET) representatives, likeminded CSO’s, partners and industry leaders to speak about SRHR and its impact on investment.

The event was hosted at the Rwanda Career Women’s Centre in Kigali which was opened in 2021 by FAWE Rwanda as a hub that supports training for young women in response to the Government of Rwanda’s drive to increase the employability of its citizens’; particularly young women through skills building.