Where We Work: Jamaica

IYF has been working in the Caribbean for more than a decade, including through the following projects:

• IYF’s Inter-American Development Bank-funded New Employment Opportunities (NEO) (2012-2018) initiative provided market-relevant training and services to 380,000 disadvantaged youth in 12 countries in the region. In Jamaica, NEO worked with the MultiCare Youth Foundation (MYF) to coordinate a multi-stakeholder alliance which strengthened job placement and training services for youth. Today MYF capacitates youth-serving organizations to equip young people with skills to keep them in school and help them secure and excel in decent jobs using IYF’s award-winning life skills curriculum, Passport to Success. 
• IYF’s USAID-funded Caribbean Youth Empowerment Program (CYEP) (2008-2013), provided 2,644 young people with life skills and technical knowledge needed to enter the job market in 4 Caribbean countries. Partners included NGOs, CSOs, local government entities and private sector partners like the St. Lucia Chamber of Commerce. In Jamaica, CYEP benefitted 416 disadvantaged young men and women, by providing them training in marketable and life-coping skills and allowing them to obtain formal jobs or start their own businesses. 
• IYF’s USAID-funded Obra Program (2009-2011) in Latin America and the Caribbean increased at-risk youth access to educational and employment opportunities through strengthened public-private partnerships. In Jamaica, IYF collaborated with PSOJ to launch the country’s largest initiative to empower at-risk youth and tackle high youth unemployment and crime, called Youth Upliftment Through Employment (YUTE). YUTE reached more than 2,000 youth with skills training, coaching, and employment opportunities before merging with MYF. 

Read about a recent Training of Trainers workshop hosted by MYF, funded by USAID through FHI360, using IYF's award-winning life skills curriculum, Passport to Success.