Youth from Ukraine, Belarus and Moldova Innovate and Collaborate to Resolve Development Challenges

For further information about infoDev Global Working Groups, including youth, please click here.

Development Marketplace is a competitive grant program of the World Bank that funds innovative, sustainable, small-scale development projects that target youth and have the potential to be expanded or replicated elsewhere.

This year the competition was focused on the theme, ‘Choose Your Future Today: Improving Work Opportunities and Developing Healthy Lifestyles for Young People.’

The participants’ projects target a range of complex issues within this year’s theme, from boosting employment opportunities to creating awareness around HIV and AIDS. There were 476 proposals submitted in total, from which forty were selected to participate in the finals in Kiev.

“We decided to create a project to facilitate the employment of youth. We teach the blind computer classes that will help them to be employable in the modern labor market,” said Larissa Sayevich, President of the Social Partnership Agency in Ukraine, and one of the winners of the competition. “We will now be able to teach them English as well, so that they can work on English language web sites. This is the first program of its kind in Ukraine.”

Ms. Sayevich’s organization also capitalizes on new and underused governmental policy encouraging businesses to hire people living with disabilities.

“My program will help to solve some problems with unemployment,” said Alexander Curashov, Program Manager for New Life in Moldova, also a winner. “It creates a structure to reintegrate people addicted to drugs as well as people who have been in jail. It is innovative because it is run by volunteers, 90 percent of whom have suffered from the challenges facing our targeted groups. This helps to create the feeling of our participants that they are on the same level, and builds the confidence of our volunteers.”

The event was coupled with a workshop where participants from the different youth organizations were able to discuss the issues of unemployment and health and share ideas and solutions to common problems. The result is that organizations build each others knowledge, and the Bank is able to take advantage of access to development practitioners at the grassroots level.

The World Bank contributed $200,000 in funding to the event, and partnered with Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation and Mobile Operator MTS who contributed $20,000 and $12,500 respectively.

The list of the winning projects from Moldova (total grants amount $73,318 ):

• New Opportunities for Young People (“Faclia” Public Association for Children and Youth, Ungheni)
• Training and Employment of Youth Affected by Use of Drugs, Crime, and HIV (“Viata Noua” NGO, Chisinau)
• Setting up Two Centers to Develop Life Skills and Employment Abilities (“Youth for Right to Life” Association, Chisinau)
• New Chances for Juvenile Delinquents (“Young and Free” Training Resource Centre, Chisinau)
• Promoting sustainable livelihoods for youth development (NGO ENVIBIO, Chisinau)

Contacts
In Washington: Michael Jones +1 202 473-2588, mjones2@worldbank.org
In Chisinau: Slavian Gutu +373 22 200 706, sgutu@worldbank.org

For more information about the Development Marketplace Awards Program, please visit their website.

For further information about infoDev Global Working Groups, including youth, please click here.

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