Youth Pathways – Mexico: Quarterly Report October-December 2013

The program is a response to the USAID/Mexico strategic objective to diminish the impact of violence in the lives of young people and in local communities located near the U.S./Mexican border. The program will provide a comprehensive array of programming and partnerships that will support the efforts of Mexican young people to build resilient communities and pathways to leadership, lifelong learning, and productive livelihoods. Within the two cities, the program will concentrate resources in six target communities: Independencia, La Alianza, and Nuevo Almaguer in Monterrey, and Camino Verde, Granjas Familiares, and Mariano Matamoros in Tijuana. The program will address objectives 2 and 3 in the USAID/Mexico Call for Proposals: Improve the availability, relevance, and quality of youth leadership and workforce development programs in target communities, and create economic, educational, and social opportunities for youth, women, and other vulnerable groups in target communities. Youth Pathways – Mexico will mobilize the experience, resources, and expertise of two highly successful national Mexican youth-serving NGOs, JCC and Seraj, who between them have implemented a full range of education, training, employability, and leadership programs for in-school, out-of-school, and unemployed Mexican young people. Two global corporations with major operations in Mexico, the Intel Corporation and PREI, will join this program and provide training, mentoring, job, and internship placement opportunities to participating youth. The program aims to significantly diminish the barriers that impede a young person's ability to gather the necessary social, economic, educational, and leadership capital to secure viable livelihoods. Over the 36-month period of the program implementation, a two-city network of six Youth Pathways – Mexico safe spaces, providing a full range of education, job readiness, training, and leadership resources, will reach and productively engage 5,000 young people. During the past quarter, the program achieved several key accomplishments, including broadening alliances with local governments and universities to support the expansion of the Jóvenes con Rumbo (JcR) program in the six target communities. The program also provided training and services for youth in six communities, placed program participants into jobs, education, and further technical training, and launched the second chance program for youth who have been in conflict with the law. The program implemented new communication tools, including JcR's webpage, Facebook page, and the first video to share success stories of youth engaged in the program. Additionally, the program replicated the JcR model in two cities, Toluca and Tlaxcala, with the municipalities showing interest in the program and launching two pilot programs that will conclude in March 2014. YouthBuild International's priorities for the next quarter include executing agreements with the Municipality of Guadalupe and the Municipality of Monterrey to open the JcR Contact Point in Nuevo Almaguer and the YEC in La Alianza, strengthening the placement program in Tijuana and Monterrey, and strengthening and diversifying JcR's partnerships with the private sector to meet the program's target goal for leverage contributions from diverse stakeholders. The program's technical activities have focused on revising and enhancing the JcR Operations Manual to reflect staff and community feedback, updating the Management Information System to align with the modifications made to the program, and adapting and finalizing the JcR Operations Manual to facilitate its use in the replication of the JcR program model by other communities.