UPSHIFT
Empowering a generation of young changemakers in Ghana
Background
Young people, aged between 10-24 years represent a third of Ghana’s population. They are reliant on equal and expanded opportunities for quality education and training, employment, entrepreneurship, and engagement to break age-related and other socio-economic barriers and succeed.
Before the COVID-19 pandemic, close to 12.1% of youth were unemployed. Young people who were employed were predominantly represented in the informal sector and are estimated to be particularly affected by the pandemic with limited support to reskill and/or find gainful employment post-pandemic. The lack of out-of-school/community spaces and tailored programmes which can support them to learn, acquire skills, engage with each other, and strategize on how to address the challenges they or their communities face may exacerbate the problem.
Why UPSHIFT?
UPSHIFT’s focus on using a community-first approach to train young people on social innovation and entrepreneurship is relevant within this context. UPSHIFT is an opportunity to support youth and adolescents, especially the most vulnerable, to become a force for positive social and economic change, contributing to a competitive labour force, sustained economic growth, improved governance, and vibrant civil societies. The UPSHIFT programme blends leading approaches to youth and adolescent development with social innovation and social entrepreneurship. UPSHIFT empowers young people to identify challenges in their communities and create entrepreneurial solutions to address them.
Generation Unlimited and UPSHIFT
The UPSHIFT programme is delivered in the framework of the Generation Unlimited (GenU) initiative. Generation Unlimited is a global multi-sector partnership that helps young people (10-24) become productive and engaged members of society by connecting Secondary-age Education. With Generation Unlimited’s focus on providing skilling and employability opportunities to young people and engaging them proactively, UPSHIFT was identified as a powerful tool to achieve the goals of Generation Unlimited.
Three key steps are followed in the implementation of UPSHIFT
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Stakeholder Consultation and youth recruitment: The community-focused approach for UPSHIFT requires that it engages with parents, school administration and teachers, government officials at the Ministry of Education and Ghana Education Service, community leaders, and adolescents and youth. Focus group discussions help build buy-in and understand specific characteristics of the project area.
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UPSHIFT workshops: Human-Centered Design workshops are used to adapt the UPSHIFT curriculum for the specific community and cohort context, with UPSHIFT trainers engaging with the participants on the curriculum.
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Employability: The UPSHIFT adaptation process focuses on practical employability training that is identified to be most critical for the specific cohort of students. This training aim to help participates internalize learnings that can be applied in the real world.
Underpinning these three activities is a strong emphasis on documenting learnings through qualitative and quantitative methods.
UNICEF in Ghana designed four pilots across six regions to test the effectiveness and sustainability of UPSHIFT’s methodology with diverse beneficiaries and stakeholders to better inform meaningful scaling in Ghana.
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African Health Innovation Center: Working with schools for the deaf in Tema and Mampong and engaged 56 adolescents and youth who are deaf or hard of hearing
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HOPIn Academy: Working in Tamale, Walewale and Damongo and has adapted UPSHIFT for 200 adolescents and young people
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Kumasi Hive:Working with the Dzongo community in Aboabo, Kumasi and focused on 60 adolescents and young people
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Soronko Academy: Working with 75 girls and young women across three cohorts in Greater Accra and the Volta region
UNICEF will continue to work with partners to unpack learnings from the pilots and identify pathways to scale UPSHIFT in Ghana. The pilot has helped us adapt and test a customized version of the UPSHIFT curriculum for different contexts, understand incentives that drive stakeholder engagement, and tweak the delivery model to find what is most efficient and effective. With this information, UNICEF will work to engage the Government of Ghana and other key stakeholders in this space to train young Ghanaians on social innovation and entrepreneurship at scale, especially those who are disabled and disadvantaged.