Youth Life & Kayaport
Catholic Relief Services (CRS) in collaboration with the Archdiocese of Tamale, YEFL-Ghana and Youth Empowerment Synergy (YES Ghana) implemented a 16-month pilot dubbed “Youth Led Initiatives for Employment” (Youth LIFE) Project.
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Youth LIFE aimed to ensure that vulnerable, out-of-school urban and peri-urban youth share in opportunities for social development and economic growth. Youth had the opportunity to pursue a choice of five different technical areas through the program.
YEFL implemented all training components and provided leadership on youth assessments while YES Ghana provided leadership to finalize classroom based training curricula and other technical assistance. CRS, the funding body, provided ICT4D and monitoring, evaluation, accountability and learning oversight, and also ensured systems and tools were created through the pilot to facilitate scale up.
Gender Equitable Masculinity
Through the integration of CRS' new peaceful masculinities curriculum into existing youth-focused programs (Youth Life 2.0), the GEM Project sought to develop avenues for beneficiaries to identify, reflect on, and challenge harmful gender stereotypes and to practice new behaviors that can effectively shift individual men's attitudes and behaviors in support of gender equality.
The GEM Project is predicated on the premise that for northern Ghana to experience transformational development, men and boys must be exposed to new ways of being and doing ‘manhood.' This includes a better understanding of more gender-equitable characteristics such as being an involved father, communicating with and making important household decisions with their partners, sharing household chores and responsibilities (childcare, cooking, and cleaning), assisting women in economic, political, and social empowerment, and utilizing and promoting non-violent conflict resolution techniques.
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To do this, from January to September 2021, CRS Ghana together with with YEFL-GHANA implemented a nine-month scalable pilot project using discretionary funding specifically earmarked for gender equality.