Indonesia year 2 overview

The second year of the Empower youth for Work project in Indonesia focused on establishing Youth hubs by actively involving young women and men, local government and other local stakeholders. In addition, the Indonesia team focused on soft skills training and creating an enabling environment. Oxfam and partners have formed an influencing working group and series of activities have been held to increase youth and community awareness on early marriages and Sexual and Reproductive Health Rights. GALS activities took place to promote the redistribution of care and domestic responsibilities at household and community level.

Key achievements

EYW in Indonesia began implementation later than the other countries in the program, but it has already established 7 Youth Hubs in 3 provinces and delivered training in soft skills, influencing and Oxfam’s Gender Action Learning System (GALS) methodogy. Youth Hubs have attracted strong support from village governments in South and Southeast Sulawesi. The Hubs will expand to be centers of information and training on economic activities for youth, linking them to employers, government and other youth organizations.

Young people are using the Human Centered Design (HCD) approach and GALS methodology, facilitated by Oxfam and partners, to develop their Hubs. GALS tools have also been used to raise community members’ awareness of gender inequality and unpaid care work.

Young people are becoming more aware that they can shape their own futures; 24 trained GALS champions have shared their learning with 166 young people across the project villages.

 

Soft skills training has enabled the youth to understand their own characters and capabilities, and to find employment or develop their own SMEs; 3 have already created micro-enterprises. To date, 73 trainers have been selected through the soft skills training of trainer courses in 3 provinces. 8 soft skills training courses have been conducted in West Java, with 180 young people participating.

With regards to our goal to create an enabling environment, we raised young people’s awareness of the negative impact of early marriage and the importance of understanding sexual and reproductive health rights; these activities reached around 1,000 young people. We also collaborated with other Oxfam projects to create a climate change campaign, with the tagline ‘Our Coast, Our Dignity’. Around 400 youth took part in talkshows and exhibitions, increasing their understanding of the impact of climate change in rural coastal areas and inspiring them to take action to tackle it.

Innovation and pilots

The EYW project established strong relationships with the local government in the creation of Youth Hubs, which was led by the young people themselves. We have also set up the Influencing Working Group with our partners, which aims to achieve integrated goals ranging from local and national government policy to private sector policy and practice.

 

Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed people can change the world. Indeed, it is the only thing that ever has.
– Margaret Mead, cultural anthropologist

 

Challenges and risks

Implementation of the program was severely challenged by the government’s suspension in January 2018 of the the EYW Indonesia Memorandum of Understanding. This has hindered progress, as we are not allowed to directly engage with youth until further agreement is reached. We are exploring alternative routes with the Ministry of Social Affairs to resume activities.