Dzuka Cholinga Youth Zambia

Our organization is centered on empowering youths with Jobs and skills so they can earn a living and move out of poverty, this community is an unplanned settlement and they is high levels of unemployment this has led to young people involving themselves in crimes and drug abuse. So when we win this money we are going to use it to train a lot of young people with skills and give them jobs. We have been giving skills without resources that are really needed, the money and support is a dream come true there are more than 100 thousand young in this community and 90 percent are not employed that money will give this organization any opportunity to open multiple businesses that will be operated by the young from transportation, printing, metal fabrication, hospitality industry, etc this has been our dream as an organization giving these young people a chance to survive through such skills development, we have a program where we give a skill of running a popcorn business for teenager single mothers and this is one of our success stories because we have managed to give 15 single Teenagers mothers an opportunity to earn a living.

I was raised by my single mum after my parents got divorced when I was 11 years old am the second born in the family of five, my growing up in a ghetto where getting education is one impossible dream but am one of the lucky ones who finished my high school . While in high school I volunteered with different Non governmental organizations (NGOs). This is what developed a passion for me to save my community which lead to the formation of this NGO upon seeing that a lot of young people in my community are unemployment and have less education to go into the labour market, I decided to come up with an initiative to solve this problem by providing skills. I have a dream of providing employment opportunities to the main young people in this community and help alleviate poverty. I grew here and seeing young people struggle when I can at least do something about it is one thing that keeps me going and am usually awake at night looking for means and opportunities to achieve this goal so that my community can develop. The organization is into providing a fighting chance to the many underprivileged youths and in future, we create a system of training and employing those trained, we also want to give the young people capacity to start their own business and employ others from the program or outside the program. 

Our organization is working on solving high levels of unemployment and lack of skills, these two problems  have left the majority in this community to live on less than a dollar a day and in turn increasing the levels of poverty. This has also contributed to high levels of crime in the recent years,  that's why the organization was formed to help over 100 thousand young people  of this community giving them a fighting chance, by way of empowering them with skills so they can employ themselves  and in turn employ others or even seek employment with their skills. Most of these young people  are high school graduates who are unable to access tertiary education because their families cannot afford the high fees. This has made a lot of young people to involve themselves in drugs abuse and criminal activities to make a living. To move away young people from such activities we formed this organization so as to offer basic skills that can help them put food on their table. We get them and identify their interests then connect them to the resource centers that are available to develop talents and we all offer skills like computers lessons, metal fabrication, Dream, poetry  and entrepreneurship lessons. As an organization, we believe if these young people have the necessary vocational training they will create their own jobs, employ other or even get jobs in the real world. 

Our work is quiet different because no organization has ever thought of coming up with an initiative to create jobs for young people or give them skills that will help them employ  themselves  and others. Our dream is to start from this community and expand to other communities because we believe in improving the standard of living for every youth. We are extraordinary because we offer the young people an opportunity to make a living standing on their own without depending on the government to create jobs. For us our projects focus on skills development but it's more on the mindsets of the young people. We want to see a time where a majority of young people can use what they have to make a living out of it.

We give opportunities to even young people who have never attended formal education because for you to acquire a  skill you don't need any qualifications, this is unique because we are not living anyone behind in our journey to empower the young people who are vulnerable in terms of economic freedom. We  want to see them help their families live a more decent life. Most organizations as you know are also based on young people providing solutions but for us we create a platform where they can implement the solutions and earn a living. Not every young person intelligent when it comes to school related activities but a skill can still help them achieve their goals.

First, we identify young people in the community that have skills acquired either through formal or informal education. Then we convince them to teach other young people under our umbrella for free or at a small covered by the NGO contributions, we go ahead to identify the young people with an interest of acquiring that particular skill, then avail them to that particular individual with the skill for them to learn. For instance if that person with the skill has a workplace that person we ask them to conduct a  workshop for our young people. In other ways we engage our local authorities to help our young people acquire a skill under their payment plan such as (bursary). After these young people learn we offer to them material for them to start operating and every 5% from the profit made is taken back to the organization for continued operation and so that we can continue giving other young people the same opportunity. We also look at connecting our young people to employment through internship opportunities that is after they acquire the skill. Having to provide skills to young people that will sustain their livelihood has helped them to move away from illicit activities and will also help reduce criminal activities and early marriages. We believe in “teaching one how to fish and not just giving them fish”. This is why if we get to win this will solve a lot of problems amongst the young people and create more impact on the community.