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Colombo
Area Office |
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Technical
Co-Operation in Sri Lanka
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| Youth
Employment Network(YEN) |
YEN – the Global Initiative
The Youth Employment Network (YEN) was created
under the impetus of the Millennium Declaration, at the Millennium
Summit in September 2000, where heads of state resolved to "
develop and implement strategies that give young people
everywhere a real chance to find decent and productive work.
"
The Network is a partnership between the UN, the World Bank
and the ILO. The YEN includes a High Level Panel of experts
and practitioners on youth employment which produced a set of
policy recommendations focusing on the 4 Es, namely; Employability,
Employment Creation,
Equal Opportunities
and Entrepreneurship.
Azerbaijan, Brazil, Egypt, Indonesia, Iran, Namibia, Mali, Rwanda,
Senegal, and Sri Lanka volunteered as Lead Countries in this
process.
Click for more details: www.ilo.org/yen
Background – Youth Unemployment in Sri Lanka
Youth unemployment has been recognized as a serious problem
in Sri Lanka since the nineteen sixties. Two major insurgencies
and the ethnic conflict are attributed largely to youth unrest
and unemployment. Current estimates have placed youth unemployment
at approximately 40 per cent of the total unemployed.
YEN-SL
Sri Lanka volunteered to be a Lead Country of the YEN and set
up the YEN Secretariat (YEN-SL) in 2004, with assistance from
the ILO. The Ministry of Skills Development, Vocational and
Technical Education (MOSDVTE) is the focal Ministry, under which
YEN-SL has been gazetted as a recognized institution. The key
responsibilities of YEN-SL are:
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Facilitating the development and implementation of an
integrated Plan of Action |
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Facilitating
the coordination of ongoing and new initiatives to address
the problem of youth employment |
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Promoting
partnerships, including the participation of youth |
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Liaising
with other YEN lead countries and with the YEN network
at the global level |
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Assisting
in the mobilization of resources, both nationally and
internationally to enable the implementation of the Plan
of Action |
YEN-SL collaborates with the Youth Employment Network in Indonesia
and Vietnam in “Promoting Youth Employment in Asia”
as a part of a project funded by the Netherlands Partnership
Programme (NPP).
YEN-SL has initiated a number of activities to promote the YEN
agenda, especially towards networking and setting up an Information
Resource Centre.
Contact:
Mr. Deepthi Lamahewa
Chief Executive Officer
Youth Employment Network Sri Lanka
“Nipunatha Piyasa”
6th Floor, No. 354/2,
Elvitigala Mawatha
Colombo 5
Tel: + 94 11 2502093
E-mail: deepthilamahewa@hotmail.com
URL: www.yensrilanka.org
Progress so far…
KAB for Vocational Training Institutes
YEN-SL is facilitating the introduction of the Know About Business
(KAB) modules to secondary schools and vocational training institutes.
YEN-SL has been successful in;
• Conducting a Train the Trainers workshop in August 2004
together with SIYB Sri Lanka
• Introducing modules to the curriculum of Draftsmanship
and welding courses conducted by the Vocational Training Authority.
• Discussing the possibility of introducing Entrepreneurship
to the secondary school curriculum in 2007, with the Department
of Education and the National Institute of Education (NIE).
GIS Database for Youth Related Information in Sri Lanka
A Geographical Information System (GIS), which
produces statistical (attributes) and locational (spatial) data,
was completed in early 2005. The System was established in collaboration
with the University of Colombo. The information from the System
could be obtained from the YEN-SL.
Data base and Directory - Youth
Development Projects in Sri Lanka
YEN-SL has compiled a directory and database of significant
Youth Employment Projects and Programmes in Sri Lanka.
Please contact YEN-SL to include details of your project or
for further details.
Social Communication Project
A key recommendation of the report on The
Youth Employment Challenge in Sri Lanka
is conducting a nation wide campaign, targeted at different
groups and using different means of communication to change
perceptions and aspirations of youth regarding job choices.
The reason sited is the perception and the negative attitude
of youth, their parents and the society at large, towards employment
and the dignity of labour.
In this context, the ILO together with YEN-SL has developed
a strategy for a long term communication campaign.
The first phase of the Social Communication Project
commenced in May 2005. This phase encompasses;
• 82 consultative meetings in 6 districts including districts
in the North and East;
• the participation of youth, parents, teachers, religious
leaders, political leadership, media, NGOs, public officials,
business leaders and other key stakeholders;
• the use of communication material such as a documentary
film, presentations, brochures and skits, designed to motivate
key stakeholders to think solutions, support initiatives and
seek as well as achieve effective results.
The second phase, which is the long-term campaign, will be conducted
by a carefully selected specialized agency/organization and
is expected to contain a media mix of conventional and unconventional
forms of communication.
The National Action Plan
A key responsibility of the YEN-SL is to formulate a National
Action Plan (NAP) aimed at;
a) analyzing the problem of youth unemployment;
b) strategizing the responses needed;
c) determining the what and the how of implementation;
d) coordinating the implementation
e) ensuring the monitoring of results.
A National Task Force for Youth Employment will be appointed
by the Minister of the focal Ministry, together with YEN-SL
would be responsible for formulating the NAP. Its development
will also involve broad consultation with significant national
stakeholders, including the youth.
As a first step towards developing Sri Lanka’s NAP, a
National Report on Youth Employment titled The Youth Employment
Challenge in Sri Lanka was produced. Recommendations generated
by this report as well as the input of several issue papers
centred around the “4Es” being prepared, will be
considered when developing the NAP.
Scheduled to be finalized and announced in 2006, the formulation
of the NAP is supported by the ILO, the World Bank and the German
Government. |
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