Building Young Futures

Description

Meshwary Project is part of a global partnership between Barclays Bank and UNICEF entitled, Building Young Futures, manifested in thirteen countries, including Egypt. The global partnership aims at helping disadvantaged young people by supporting them to access education and employment and to gain skills in entrepreneurship and enterprise, thereby providing them with the tools, skills and opportunities that they need to achieve a brighter economic future.

The project works with two age categories of young people; adolescents (13-18 years) and youth (19-24) years residing in ten governorates in Egypt, representing Urban and Rural areas, Upper and Lower Egypt governorates. The targeted governorates are: Cairo, Alexandria, Assiut, Sohag, Qena, Aswan, Sharkia, Daqahliya, Menufiya, and Ismailia.

The project components are:

• Peer Education: Building the life skills, entrepreneurial and employability skills of adolescents and youth through a
  peer education programme
• Counseling Center: Mapping of employment programmes/services available in areas of intervention and developing a
  database of these programmes/services for future use by the counseling centers.
• Career Guidance: Providing career guidance, support and referral to young people through counseling centers.
• Micro-finance: Linking young people with micro-finance.
• Work placement: Work placements for young people.
• Business Skills: Sharing of business skills and knowledge from Barclays employees.

The objectives of the evaluation were:

• Measure the extent to which planned and unintended results have been attained during the
  implementation of the Meshwary project in the ten governorates;
• Assess changes in the capacities and skills of adolescents and youth;
• Assess the contribution of the training activities to the project’s objectives;
• Establish and share with all partners the critical lessons learned that will contribute to improving the design
  and performance of similar future programs.

Services

• Conducted Comprehensive Literature Review and secondary data analysis on youth the country context in relation to employment opportunities, economics activities and governance.
• Evaluation Conceptual Framework: Developed evaluation indicators, concept and research tools (FGDs guide, in depth interviews guides, and individual case studies).
• Training: Field team members received an intensive training on the research techniques and field survey implementation, management and quality control skills.
• Data Collection in Sharkia, Alexandria, Asiut & Qena through 28 Focus group discussions included representative sample of the population considering gender, socioeconomic status, and disability, 21 in depth interviews with key stakeholders across various Meshwary partners in a way that is representative of the interventions made by said partners, and 5 individual case studies with Meshwary beneficiaries.
• Data analysis using qualitative data analysis method.
• Report writing and formulation of recommendations for further projects implementation and lessons learned