Tanzania has an extremely youthful population with 76% below the age of 35. Tanzania’s economy has been growing, but notably out-of-school youth with low educational attainment tend to be delinked from the country’s growth due to unemployment or vulnerable employment. Because of conservative religious believes and societal attitudes, young mothers are even more excluded from community life and often ostracized by others in the villages, including their own families. Most of these young mothers will likely have to self-employ themselves as formal employment is rare. Yet, many of them do not have the skill set to do so nor can they access formal training.
In response to these challenges, the project aims to facilitate market-responsive technical training, counselling support, provision of soft skills and coaching, as well as access to finance to empower marginalized young mothers to access (self-) employment and generate income. Furthermore, it focuses on the requirements of young mothers to be able to combine professional activities with the care of their children.
This is being done in close collaboration with local NGOs acting as training providers, multiple private sector actors for input supply, access to markets and coaching, as well as local government and families of young mothers.
The project serves young mothers, aged 15-30, who are marginalized and unemployed and who a) have given birth to their first child while attending primary or secondary school or b) dropped out of school due to a pregnancy and/or c) are actively parenting the child. Young mothers participating in this project are single or divorced.
The project aims to create self-employment opportunities for marginal young mothers through the provision of non-formal vocational skills training and additional support services, including access to finance.
The project will also have an impact on the communities given that the support will also touch the young mothers’ families, community leaders and the community at large.
This project is financed by the Irene M. Staehelin Foundation. It is part of the Swisscontact Development Programme, co-financed by the Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation (SDC), Federal Department of Foreign Affairs FDFA.