About the Project
This project is one of the 2018 WISE Awards finalists.
Life Project 4 Youth aims to create an integrated ecosystem, around entrepreneurial training, that will be a catalyst for the sustainable social and professional integration of youth living in extreme poverty and victims of exclusion.
Context and Issue
Today there are 1.2 billion youth aged 15 to 24, 600 million of them suffer from malnutrition, illness and violence. Although youth are the future of this world, they often find themselves locked in the circle of poverty.
Solution and Impact
To respond to this emergency, LP4Y has been committed to developing a unique and replicable pedagogy based on experiential learning and positive entrepreneurial mindset. The program consists of installing Life Projects Centers (LPC) near areas of extreme poverty. There, the youth commit to follow, for an average of 18 months, the “Professional Training for Entrepreneurs” (PTE). It includes business management experience; take courses in English, IT, communication, and general knowledge, and work on their personal development.
LP4Y is addressing problems that are the causes of exclusion: poverty, lack of education, lack of decent work, lack of connection with the corporate world.
LPY4 is designed to make participants entrepreneurs of their own Lives through entrepreneurial projects. In teams of fifteen, the youth manage a micro-business project and receive training to enhance their skills. Moreover, LP4Y creates an Integration ecosystem that accompany the youth after graduation.
Participants commit to following the program; they approach companies to get internships and be hired and get their families out of poverty. Their testimonies and actions can transform their communities.
Since 2009, LP4Y have accompanied 1,450 Youths: 750 are currently in the program and 550 are now well integrated in the corporate world. Indirectly, there are 10,000 people who have been positively impacted by LP4Y’s actions.
Future Developments
The objective for the next two years is to open Centers in 4 new countries (Nepal, Myanmar, Bangladesh and Sri Lanka) to prove that LP4Y’s pedagogy can be replicable in other communities.