Promoting social cohesion and peaceful co-existence in fragile contexts through education and technical-vocational training guide for TVET professionals
Technical and Vocational Education and Training (TVET) is suitable for meeting the immediate need to improve the employability of people affected by armed conflicts and natural disasters, enabling them to have or seek livelihoods through decent work based on opportunities available locally in the public and/or private sectors.
Young people in Mozambique are often disconnected from educational and employment opportunities, especially in rural areas or those affected by conflict or extreme climatic events. This makes them more vulnerable to recruitment into armed conflicts, exploitation for labour or involvement in illicit activities.
In addition to youth, women face additional threats that can be reduced with access to technical and professional training. For example: guaranteeing women's access to vocational training can enable them to achieve economic self-sufficiency, preventing them from resorting to informal activities, early unions or submission to forms of exploitation, through sex work, in order to generate income, as often happens in areas affected by conflicts or natural disasters.
Generally, humanitarian assistance in Mozambique focuses on the most urgent needs, such as support for food security and health, paying special attention to children of school age .
However, TVET programmes must be incorporated effectively, especially for young people and women, in order to provide skills and job opportunities to ensure long-term resilience, within the framework of the humanitarian nexus, development and peace (N- HDP).
TVET programmes offer a pathway to reintegration by combining skills development with conflict resolution and mitigation and social cohesion capacities. This contributes to reducing the psychosocial impact of trauma and displacement and can offer a real-life context for re-establishing co-operation and inclusion and promoting social cohesion within and between communities.
This is particularly demonstrable if TVET programmes involve work-based learning. However, training alone does not offer a quick fix for creating social cohesion.
It is essential that vocational training programmes in Mozambique integrate conflict-sensitive methodologies and focus on ‘do no harm’, actively promoting social cohesion based on the participation and needs of young people and women in vulnerable situations.
This is crucial in contexts such as provinces of Cabo Delgado, Nampula and Niassa where conflicts have impacted heavily on the lives of communities.
In Mozambique, there are still significant gaps in materials and methodologies to guide vocational trainers on how to promote social cohesion and the integration of marginalised young people and women into VET programmes.
It is therefore necessary to invest in specific resources for trainers to ensure that all vulnerable groups have the chance to participate fully.