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Opportunity Hub: a strategy to address youth unemployment

The initiative aims to provide a first quality job opportunity and training for the young population in the tourism sector, addressing unemployment and poverty in an innovative and sustainable way.

Municipality

RW
Kigali, Kigali,

Category / Sub-Category / Topic

Economic development, Labor

Type of investment needed

Loan

Associated SDGs

The challenge

As businesses continue to recover from the economic disruption and devastation caused by the pandemic, many companies have paused their hiring due to limited resources to take on additional manpower. Some have suspended efforts to rehire those who were let go over the past year to reduce personnel costs as sales slowed. In addition to finding good-quality jobs harder to come by, Musanze District youth have also faced disruptions to education and training.

Poverty remains a significant problem across the Musanze community, with the rising population adding new layers of complexity to the challenge. Indeed, estimates are currently as high as 30, 9% for youth unemployment, and not surprisingly, COVID-19 has exacerbated the issue.


The project

Due to the Rwanda’s geographic and biodiversity characteristics, the tourism industry is one of the sectors that offer the most opportunities to generate the formal employment that the local population needs.

In this regard, the initiative proposes to foster the tourism industry in Rwanda by training local youth as professional tour guides and tour operators. This training will help them to be able to compete on the job market, as well as to solve the current demand for professional tour guides faced by the tour operators’ sector throughout the region.

The preferred target to be trained is young women who make up 70% of the current unemployed throughout the country.

Does the "Opportunity Center" not only promote sustained, inclusive and sustainable economic growth, full and productive employment and decent work for all but also fosters the conservation of the country's natural heritage by ensuring that visitors have a respectful approach to the country's biodiversity.

In this sense, the initiative proposes:

- To train local youth as professional tour guides and tour operators, and

- To generate formal job opportunities through partnerships with the companies of the industry throughout the region.

The training will be 6 months long (two cohorts in a year) and does not have any cost. For the first year, as a pilot phase; there will be trained a total of 100 youth (half of the location’s total capacity). All participants are already selected in a first round. The training will be both theoretical and practical. For the first 3 months, trainees will be going through materials theoretically. Then after, the last 3 months trainees will be undergoing practical courses. The program will be part-time as it is known that some of trainees have other responsibilities to fulfil. There will be two sessions a week with a total of 9 hours weekly.

During the program, there will be a prepared event to engage with tourists. This event will be called Snap and Connect! It will be a golden opportunity for trainees to connect and learn from tourists as they are experts in different sectors. This event will be once in six months.

The generation of formal job opportunities will be addressed by the partnerships this Organization already has with other tourism operators throughout the region. It is expected by the end of the year 95% of the graduates will be hired by those tour operators across East Africa.


Know more...

Rwanda is a landlocked country situated in Central Africa.  Considered to be among the smallest countries on the continent, Rwanda’s total area is estimated to be KM2 26,338. That’s where Musanze District lies, located in Northern Province of Rwanda; a tourism center near volcanoes national park in the north western part of Rwanda. The mountainous Musanze community is located in the backdrop of the beautiful Virunga Mountains.

Musanze District also holds a town called Musanze, with a current population of 398.986 inhabitants, it is one of the biggest towns in Rwanda and without a doubt the most famous tourist destination in Rwanda home to the endangered mountain gorillas found in tha Volcanoes National Park that attract many tourists yearly.

Poverty in Musanze is still significant; around 60% of youth live below the poverty line. One contributing factor is that Musanze community suffers from a poor education system where only 68% of first-graders end up completing all six years of primary education. Another component is that domestic private investment in Musanze has yet to take off, mainly due to low domestic savings. Additionally, many people operate subsistence farms and thus have little time and income. 

Moreover, the unemployment rate increased by 6.5 points from 17.0 % in February 2021 to 23.5% in May 2021. The unemployment rate remained relatively higher among females (26.7 %) as compared to males (19.9 %). Youth Unemployment Rate in Rwanda as well as in Musanze community increased to 30.90% in the second quarter of 2021 from 21.70% in the first quarter of 2021. 

  • Adequacy of Facilities: The organization already has a proper place to host the training, but it has to be fixed to offer the proper environment for the learning process. There are 2 rooms with the capacity of hosting 50 students each. They need to be very well ventilated as well as equipped with chairs and internet service.
  • Call for students: The organization has already received enough shows of interest to select 100 potential trainees for the first year.
  • Syllabus: To ensure this program’s success, the organization is in partnership with local government and other public institutions which will give experts who will help it to design and deliver with excellence. Those experts will come from: Rwanda Development Board (RDB), Rwanda Tours and Travel Association (RTTA), Rwanda Chamber of Tourism, Rwanda Environment Management (REMA), and Mastercard Foundation. 
  • Snap and Connect event: This event will be carried out once in six months. They will be scheduled during the high tourism season months to engage the most possible tourists and other tourism industry representatives. This is a golden opportunity where the trainees will connect and socialize with “clients” to build networks as well as foster opportunities in the sector.

During this first year of implementation, the expected results are: 

  • Train 100 youth, 75 youth women among them, as professional tourist guides and tour operators.
  • Incorporate 95 youth in formal jobs offered by the tourism industry.
  • Design one (1) syllabus to train tourist guides and tour operators with professional standards.
  • Build a network with tourist operators throughout the East Africa region that provides constant demand for people who work in the tourism industry chain.

Expected impact:

  • Increase in the number of trained young people, especially women, prepared to access formal jobs. 
  • Poverty reduction.
  • Reduction of the unemployment rate .
  • Gap’s reduction related to gender job opportunities
  • Good health and well-being among young people .



Investment

(*): In kind/pro bonus

(**): Financing

Goods and inputs
Funds
Needed
Covered
Solicited

Blackboards (*) (**)

u$s 300.00

u$s 0.00

u$s 300.00

Projectors (*) (**)

u$s 1000.00

u$s 0.00

u$s 1000.00

Recorders (*) (**)

u$s 100.00

u$s 0.00

u$s 100.00

Camera (*) (**)

u$s 1000.00

u$s 0.00

u$s 1000.00

Telephotos (*) (**)

u$s 1000.00

u$s 0.00

u$s 1000.00

Binoculars (*) (**)

u$s 1000.00

u$s 0.00

u$s 1000.00

Journals and Pens (*) (**)

u$s 300.00

u$s 0.00

u$s 300.00

Spotting Scopes (*) (**)

u$s 200.00

u$s 0.00

u$s 200.00

Field Guides (*) (**)

u$s 400.00

u$s 0.00

u$s 400.00

Gloves (*) (**)

u$s 200.00

u$s 0.00

u$s 200.00

Application to monitor all the activities on a daily basis (*) (**)

u$s 500.00

u$s 0.00

u$s 500.00

A van/ vehicle (*) (**)

u$s 8000.00

u$s 0.00

u$s 8000.00

4 air conditioner (*) (**)

u$s 2000.00

u$s 0.00

u$s 2000.00

50 chairs (*) (**)

u$s 250.00

u$s 0.00

u$s 250.00

WiFi installation (*) (**)

u$s 1000.00

u$s 0.00

u$s 1000.00

Services
Funds
Needed
Covered
Solicited

Insurance (*) (**)

u$s 500.00

u$s 0.00

u$s 500.00

Security (*) (**)

u$s 1000.00

u$s 0.00

u$s 1000.00

Utilities (*) (**)

u$s 2000.00

u$s 0.00

u$s 2000.00

Printing (*) (**)

u$s 500.00

u$s 0.00

u$s 500.00

Health, awareness and legal (*) (**)

u$s 600.00

u$s 0.00

u$s 600.00

Human resources
Funds
Needed
Covered
Solicited

Trainees / Experts bonuses (*) (**)

u$s 4500.00

u$s 0.00

u$s 4500.00

Staff trainings (*) (**)

u$s 1000.00

u$s 0.00

u$s 1000.00

TOTAL AMOUNTS:

u$s 27350.00

u$s 0.00

u$s 27350.00

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