Envelope 2: Apprenticeship Socio-Economic Recovery Program Many women, men, and youth in the targeted communities are looking for employment opportunities to become self-reliant and be able to support themselves and their families, however, with the lack of needed capacity, educational background, or practical experience, it is difficult to succeed in finding a proper employment opportunity while obtaining these mandatory skills and experiences requires time and financial resources. 
Small and medium business owners, on the other hand, seek to employ staff members with either related educational backgrounds or practical experience to obtain the highest levels of effectiveness and prevent waste of time and effort to train inexperienced candidates, especially in the current economic situation.
The project is considered as the linking pin between most vulnerable community members and potential employers to integrate them in the labor market system through paid apprenticeships opportunities over four months duration that allows them to obtain tailored technical employability skills that eventually ends with paid recruitment either with the same employer, another or even to establish their own business when relevant.
Apprenticeships are traditionally the way in which the trades have trained their workforce, through on-the-job training in the workplace with qualified workers or master craftsmen as instructors and mentors. Employers, business associations, and joint labor-management organizations, known collectively as apprenticeship sponsors, provide apprentices with instruction that reflects industry needs. Apprenticeship sponsors pay most of the training costs, and apprentices are paid during their training period.
The project considers immediate support to vulnerable groups in the community where they will be directly integrated into the labor market system gaining in-job skills without the need to go through theoretical capacity building programs that may not guarantee employment opportunities, or may not be required by the labor market, or even won’t include practical or on-job training which is the essential part that grants career and experience building.
The approach that this activity is seeking is significant due to the fact that it is directly supporting beneficiaries with the minimum cost possible and in a timely manner in addition to securing income generation solutions.
On the other hand, having an apprenticeship sponsor is a direct benefit for the employer too, with the struggles that SMEs are facing within the uncountable challenges in North-west Syria, one of the main inputs for business growth is to have cost-effective human resources as full or part-time staff to increase the productivity of that business. And by this activity, we can mobilize up to 500 apprentice workers to be engaged in at least 250 Small and Medium enterprise (SME) businesses without having the employer pay any salary during the apprenticeship program. 
And in return to the apprentice workers will receive a monthly cash-voucher with an amount equivalent to the minimum known wage in line with the estimation of SMEB cost in Northwest Syria (Survival Minimum Expenditure Basket) based on the recommendation of the Cash Working Group. 
Finally, hosting small-medium enterprises that will host the apprentice workers won't only benefit from upscaled human resources within their businesses but will also be targeted with a light rehabilitation component for their facility mainly with enhanced access for people with disabilities.