Silatech announces project for training 80 thousand workers

The Qatari Foundation Silatech is working to train Yemeni workers and provide them with jobs in Yemeni and Gulf companies.

The Qatari Foundation Silatech announced a new project for training 80 thousand Yemeni workers according to the highest international standards.  In a meeting with the editors in chief of the most significant Yemeni newspapers held in Movenpick hotel in Sana’a  last Sunday, the Silatech Senior Country Representative in Yemen, Prof, Mohammed al-Maitami said this project would qualify the Yemeni workers to work either in Yemen or in the Gulf countries. He further mentioned that Silatech is to present 40 thousand loans to 40 thousand young men after the success of the first phase of small loans granted to the Yemeni youth through al-Amal Bank.
 
Silatech has also made contracts with different Yemeni and Gulf Companies to provide them with high qualified Yemeni workers that have high standard qualities and international certificates.
 
The meeting was attended by Mohammed A. Azizi al-Ansari, Media Relations Officer at the office of Her Highness Sheikha Mozah Bint Nasser Al-Missned, and other experts from Silatech.
 
In the meeting, Prof. Al-Maitami briefed the Yemeni media leaders about Silatech’s main goals, principles, strategies, projects and theories.
 
Strategic Goal 1 – Policy:
 
Government policies must be shaped to improve the competitiveness of the labor market, the strength of the business environment, and the overall employment and economic opportunities for young people.
 
Strategic Goal 2 – Mindset:
 
Many factors can help or hinder young people’s pathways to employment and social inclusion. It is important to build on traditional values to improve attitudes towards various types of work, gender norms, family and community support that accelerate young people’s meaningful engagement in society and the economy.
 
Strategic Goal 3 – Access:

For young people to succeed in finding gainful employment they need access to skills training, counseling and placement services linked to the requirements of the labor market
 
Improve micro, small and medium-sized enterprises’ (MSME’s) access to capital, business development services and markets.

 
In order to succeed, young, entrepreneurial MSMEs - both new and existing - need access to capital, business development services and linkages to corporate supply chains and regional and global markets.
 
Board of Trustees

Her Highness Sheikha Mozah Bint Nasser Al-Missned, Qatar, Founder and Chair of Silatech
 
Founder and Chair of the Qatar Foundation for Education, Science and Community Development, His Excellency Martti Ahtisaari, Finland, former President of Finland, Nobel Peace Prize Laureate, 2008
 
Co-Chairman of the European Council on Foreign Relations, His Excellency Dr. Khaled Bin Mohammed Al-Attiyah, Qatar, Minister of International Cooperation, Sir David Bell, United Kingdom, Former Chairman of the Financial Times, Mr. John Chambers, United States, Chairman and Chief Executive of Cisco, Mr. Nabil Kuzbari, Syria, President and CEO of Vimpex Handelsgesellschaft MBH, President and CEO of The Kuzbari Group, Mr. Rick Little, United States, Chief Executive Officer of Silatech, Founder and President of the ImagineNations Group, Founder of the International Youth Foundation, Her Excellency Mary Robinson, Republic of Ireland, Former President of the Republic of Ireland, Former United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, President, Realizing Rights, The Ethical Globalization Initiative, Mr. Ratan Tata, India, Chairman of Tata & Sons, Chairman of India’s Investment Commission

Silatech was launched at the AOC Forum in January 2008 in Madrid, and has actively participated in all AOC forum activities since its launch.
 
Gallup and Silatech have jointly developed the Silatech Index - a scientific broad based objective survey of the challenges facing Arab youth in the world, highlighting the problem of unemployment, skills mismatch and its implications for social and economic development. The Index aims to amplify the voices of Arab youth to the world of decision makers and opinion shapers.
 
Purpose of Silatech
 
Often hidden from view but in plain sight are millions of young people who are arguably the world’s most abundant and untapped asset.
 
More than 100 million young people between 15 and 29 years old now represent 30 percent of the region’s total population. With two-thirds of the region’s population under the age of 24, the region is facing an unprecedented “youth bulge”. This demographic cohort is the largest ever in the region’s history to enter the labor market.
 
These young women and men are more educated, healthier, and better connected to the global community than previous generations. Yet they face significant challenges, especially in obtaining access to employment and enterprise opportunities in a weakened economic environment due to the global financial crisis. Unfortunately, and given current projections and at the current pace of existing interventions of support, there will not be enough jobs available to support them.
 
Young people want access to better opportunities and particularly to jobs. And they want to utilize their skills to become productive workers, entrepreneurs, family heads, and active citizens. Ultimately, the way young people navigate these years will largely determine the future of the region.
 
In order to respond to the scale and urgency of this challenge, Silatech was established with the leadership of Her Highness Sheikha Mozah bint Nasser Al Missned in 2008 with a mission to connect young people, 18-30 years old, with employment and enterprise opportunities. Silatech’s commitment is to mobilize interest, investment, knowledge, resources and action to drive large-scale comprehensive employment and enterprise development programs.
 
To facilitate these objectives and garner consensus and support from key regional and international partners operating in this space, Silatech also supported the creation of a youth employment and enterprise Knowledge Consortium.
 
Working in three critical domains established by Silatech – Mindset, Access and Policy (MAP) – the Knowledge Consortium pools the human resources and intellectual capital of a broad network of experts and practitioners to serve as a focal point of scholarship, research, evaluation, and best practices to further build knowledge that assists understanding of the employment challenges and opportunities facing youth in the Arab world. Vitally, the Consortium also supports the application of this knowledge through initiatives that have the ability to keep pace with the impending need as evidenced by the region’s youth bulge.
 
Theory of Change
 
Silatech’s theory of change or program framework is developed around the premise that no single organization can address the daunting youth employment challenge by itself and that it is only in partnership with others that a new trajectory of hope, opportunity and support for young people across the Arab World can be made possible. Partnership is at its core. Silatech works through strategic partnerships with public, private and civil society organizations with international, regional and/or local mandates to change the odds for young people at scale.
 
In Silatech’s framework for change, young people’s perceptions toward the job market, pathways and obstacles to entry, as well as societal values towards youth, as captured by a Mindset pillar, inform and guide Policy dialogue and reform to further improve young peoples Access to entrepreneurship and economic opportunities. Increased youth access to more and better employment and enterprise development opportunities, in turn, promotes a greater environment of fairness at work as individuals have not just jobs, but good quality jobs. Such an enabling environment feeds back into Mindset, improving attitudes toward labor entry and human capital development, which further improves Policy and Access, creating a self perpetuating, virtuous cycle of improvement.

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