Advancing Youth Employment in Morocco
Read All PostsThe Moroccan Ministry of Tourism, the International Youth Foundation (IYF), and Silatech, a social enterprise focused on youth employment, have renewed their commitment to improving the job prospects of Moroccan youth. The recent signing of a memorandum of understanding by Minister of Tourism Mr. Lahcen Haddad reaffirms the partnership and launches the second phase of the Emploi Habilité (EH) program.
As its French name indicates, the program focuses on employment and empowerment, specifically preparing youth for jobs in the tourism and hospitality sector. In Morocco, young people ages 15 to 29 represent 40 percent of the working age population, yet almost half of them are neither working nor in school. Providing training opportunities to disadvantaged youth represents an invaluable means of promoting growth and safeguarding Morocco’s future.
Nine hundred youth will receive IYF’s Passport to Success® (PTS) life skills education. Carried out in Moroccan training centers, the program will include modules in individual development, conflict resolution, professional skills, health education, and entrepreneurship. PTS also offers teachers a highly interactive and refreshing new way to engage students.
During its first phase (2009-11), EH engaged 139 tourism and hospitality employers, trained 795 youth, and placed 455 youth in jobs or internships. These figures represent a 57 percent placement success rate. According to Yahia Melhaoui of the Hotel Ibis Center, “It’s a win-win context. Our hotel will win by recruiting these youth as trainees or employees because they have exactly the skills we need. We will continue to recruit youth from this program. We consider them to have very interesting profiles that can aspire to sustainable progress in our company.”
The two-year program will launch in five regions and ultimately expand to reach youth across the entire country. Approximately 70 percent of participants in the program are expected to be placed in tourism sector jobs during the program’s first full year.