Volunteer Youth Corps is most recognized for its ongoing focus on youth initiative in Guyana and also its innovative thinking in continuously piloting new and informed educational programs to foster and enhance creative thinking among youth. We are one of the local partners working with the USAID/SKYE office to implement a component of the Skills and Knowledge for Youth employment (SKYE) project in Guyana. The project is funded by USAID and under the Caribbean Basin Security initiative and executed through the Education Development Center (EDC), a US based global education and training institution.
The SKYE project is a 4-year initiative which seeks to equip youth with market driven skills and improve their ability to transition to the work force. SKYE is working with a total of 1500 youth in Region 4, 5, 9 and 10 of which 200 youth will be part of the “Detention Prevention” component. This component provides minor offenders with alternative sentencing, diversion and work readiness training. These youth will be alternatively sentenced or diverted in to the SKYE program, and receive coaching to help them develop individual employability plans; one part of the plan will be additional training in work readiness skills. VYC is tasked with completing its current deliverables and then widen its scope of work to increase its target to an additional 60 youth over a 2 year period.
To date, VYC have trained 56 youth using the work readiness curriculum. Many of these youth are currently being linked to employers and other training facilities by an assigned SKYE Coach. Intense focus has been placed on these youth to encourage them to become positive and creative thinkers. Many of the participants were selected from Sophia, other part of South-east Georgetown and along the East Coast.