Sustainable Livelihood for Youth The project titled Empowering Youth to Create Sustainable Livelihoods will be implemented by Youth Employment Systems Rwanda (YES Rwanda) a partner of Oxfam Novib in Rwanda; the project will run for a period of 2 years i.e. from October 2012 to September 2014. The major goal of the project is to build the capacity of young people to attain sustainable livelihoods through establishing an entrepreneurial culture of young people towards self-employment.

The project will be implemented through 4 interventions areas of YES Rwandas programmes namely Business and Enterprise Development, Policy Research and Advocacy, Communication and Outreach and Organizational Capacity Building. Through this  YES Rwanda will carry out Advocacy of Youth employment, Education and Livelihood support for Orphans and Vulnerable Children and Child Headed Households, entrepreneurship promotion among young entrepreneurs, job linkages for job seekers, and Vocational skills training.

Geographical coverage of the project will be;
-for Youth Livelihoods program support Orphans and Vulnerable Children and Child Headed Households from Kinyinya and Kagugu villages (Gasabo District, Kigali City Province) and Nyamata Village (Bugesera District, Eastern Province) Business and Enterprise Development programmes.
- For Policy Research and Advocacy and Communication and Outreach programs will operate nationwide through partnership with key social actors such us: local authorities; National Youth Council; Youth Organizations and Representatives, women groups, Local and International NGOs and the UN System.
Through partnership YES Rwanda will work to:
- Promote a cultural shift towards entrepreneurship and to advocate for enablingenvironment for youth enterprise.
- Work with private sector and other partners to provide business development support services (BDS) that are accessible and appropriate to the youth.
- Create opportunities for young people to gain enterprise skills and to test their business ideas in the market. Through role models motivate young people to change their mindsets regarding self-employment andentrepreneurship.
- Identify and support Youth Enterprise Champions to show # case successful youth entrepreneurs.
The project willalso support creating a Youth Employment Alliance at both local and national levels. Specifically at local level, youth groups willprovide a forum for young people to share ideas, learn new skills, access information on employment opportunities and to gain confidence; and at the national level, network building will focus on developing and strengthening coalitions with other youth service providers. Youth Employment Alliance will generally serve to:
# Build a platform for youth to influence policy and to participate in finding solutions to problems faced by youth.
# Create a demanding body for accountability.
# Provide a mechanism for disseminating <(>&<)> gathering information relating to youth
# Create an entry point for resources thus enabling hard-to-reach youth to gain exposure as well asaccess finance, training and expertise.

Project is set out to achieve the following;
- Establish 18 youth thematic clusters consisting of 10 youth each for mentorship coaching; entrepreneurial training; confidence building; hands on skills; VSL voluntary savings and loan scheme ; connected to financial institutions and each cluster will be registered as a company and will be operational
- Provide vocational training to 150 orphans, abandoned, handicapped, displaced, poor and vulnerable children and link themwith the relevant job market and support for personal development.
- Lobby and advocate for 3 years exemption and taxes for start-up businesses
- Lobby and advocate for the increment of youth guarantee fund from 50% -85% cover
- Build a critical mass of 200 activists to support advocacy work. (vision 2020 desk)
- Facilitate increased access to #specialised job skills# training. Carefully selected for 50 young talented and #special brain# people nationwide and support to them to attain their full potential.
- Fill 80% of the gap existing between demand for information and its provision by facilitating the establishment of infrastructures that link job seekers with employers e.g. job desk.
- Quarterly knowledge exchanges (regional, national and international) will be organized with global YES organizations and those outside the YES global family to share and implement best-practice.

Rwandese youth play a significant economic role at household level, especially where many households are headed by youth, very few are equipped with skills thatare necessary for them to earn a decent living and the confidence to exploit opportunities. Youth focus group discussions facilitated by YES Rwanda indicated fundamental differences in future aspirations between youth that had received some form of livelihood skills training and those without. Youth with vocational skills were optimistic about the future, could articulate their goals and how to achieve them and were aware of limitations and how to overcome them. On the other hand, most of the youth who had not received skills training, were pessimistic about their future and often had no plan in mind on what they wanted to achieve.
Priorities for YES Rwanda have been to research, pilot and disseminatefor wider adoption by other youth service providers, innovative approaches that link skills development to sustainable livelihood outcomes. In addition, YES Rwanda will lobby for the recognition of the informal sector as a major player in providing employment and for a supportive policy framework for the sector.