“The training opportunity has given me the chance to meet new people, and have better communication skills,” says Ruba Othman, a 19 year old Lebanese beneficiary who works as a photography volunteer at LOST. Ruba adds “I’m thrilled to be working as a photography volunteer; I know it is not the biggest salary out there, but I am enjoying the learning experience and the money I am earning gives me independence. I know an opportunity when I see one, and the experience earned in this job is a career opportunity that I have to capitalize on!”
Beaming out of a profound belief in youth’s fundamental role in building civilized, well developed and fair societies, the UNICEF-LOST partnership has adopted the UN established “Sustainable Development Goals (SDG)” in their common projects. Out of the total 17 Sustainable Development Goals, two main goals were capitalized upon in the “Learning and Skills Program for Syrian Refugees and Lebanese Youth” a common project initiated by UNICEF and LOST. These two goals serve the purpose of providing better lives for the future generations through providing youth with quality education and decent work, thus promoting for economic growth and more social cohesion.
Through this program youth take various trainings in which inclusive and equitable quality education is ensured for all and simultaneously these youth will be stocking lifetime lasting lessons and experience. The program provides opportunities for technical and vocational training/orientation to youth in order to be later able to find better jobs. One of the most important results of the program is that it reduces the number of unemployed youth and it promotes for safe and decent work environments, and as a direct result youth gain more access to jobs, and hence better life standards.
Indeed this is what has been achieved at the end of Cycle I of the program, in which nine Lebanese and Syrian beneficiaries have found jobs making use of the acquired trainings. These beneficiaries whose ages range from 14 to 25 were offered jobs by LOST within UNICEF programs, or other LOST partnership Programs such as the Mennonite Central Committee MCC funded projects, or started working at other venues; others have started as apprentices at trainers’ workplaces, and many more are yet following their steps.
LOST intends to organize a job fair for youth to display their newly acquired abilities and, at the same time, they will get to meet representatives from other organizations and businesses so that they eventually can get more job offers.
The head of the Monitoring & Evaluation department at LOST explained, when quizzed about the Job Placement process, “Acting from the position I’m in, I’ve firsthand seen the effect of this program on youth’s life, many times before we have seen subpar economic situations of families effect youth’s ability to participate in any learning experiences. The programs are now more appealing since they seem to produce economic revenue and a chance to start from somewhere in their career paths; for youth, this is an ultimate game changer.”
