Pilot project “Ausbildung”
Since the Saboba Youth Centre was founded, its volunteers have been known for constantly developing new ideas and trying some of them out in order to improve the situation of young people in Saboba. Last year, when Lauritz, Helene and Fabian visited, they presented their latest idea to us: the “Ausbildung” project.
The idea behind “Ausbildung” is to provide targeted support to economically disadvantaged young people and prevent them from slipping into unemployment. The aim is to establish two long-term support programmes: On the one hand, there is the traditional financing of school materials and fees for talented but needy pupils who would otherwise be unable to attend school due to their families' poverty. Secondly, SYC wants to help school dropouts find their strengths in practical work and learn a trade despite difficulties at school. To this end, the costs and work equipment for training at a local company are to be financed. The aim is for those receiving support to develop further and, after three years, to be able to stand on their own two feet with the profession they have learned – instead of being unemployed, lacking opportunities and at risk of going “off the rails”.
This is, of course, a challenging project that requires close supervision by SYC volunteers, especially for school dropouts. It also requires highly committed training companies that are willing to give young people opportunities they might not otherwise have. Financially, too, the idea goes well beyond the SYC's current scope. For this reason, a longer pilot phase is now being launched with two students from Sambuli R/C Junior High School in Sambuli.
In this pilot phase, SYC is testing the necessary coordination between parents, children, schools and its own volunteers to ensure effective use of financial support. But also to ensure that children attend school regularly as planned and to find out how often coaching and support from SYC is needed or desired.
Parallel to the hopefully relatively simple pilot phase of school support, the foundations for educational support are to be laid:
Finding local businesses that are willing to support the project over several years.
Finding school dropouts whose families and they themselves are willing to get involved in the project and use the donations in a disciplined manner.
And last but not least, establishing processes for regular check-ins with the trainees, as well as the trainers and parents. This includes, in particular, defining clear rules for days of absence or, in the worst case, dropping out of training, and ensuring ways of enforcing them.
We welcome this initiative and particularly endorse the SYC's step-by-step approach. We are trying to support them as best we can from afar. The potential for a positive impact of the “Ausbildung” project is very high, and we very much hope that the first pilot phase will be successful. In the long term, the project is ideally suited for financial support through direct sponsorships here in Germany. We will keep you up to date on how “Ausbildung” is developing in the next newsletters!
