Ethiopia Helping Youth Find Decent Employment: Hibo’s Story
18- year-old Hibo Tahir completed 12th grade two years back. However, her grades were not good enough for higher education. Save the Children, through its RESET+ project, has provided job readiness and other life skill training to Hibo and other youth in the Somali Region of Ethiopia. The training has helped many unemployed adolescents to obtain essential skills and succeed in securing decent jobs. Hibo’s story in her own words follows.
My name is Hibo and I am 18 years old. I live with my parents here in Biye Diddle village in Somali Region. We are pastoralist and livestock are our only means of income and sustenance. However, we lost most of our livestock due to recurrent droughts in this area. Because of this, we often suffer from shortage of food and water for our animals and ourselves.
Last year, I had the opportunity to attend a skills training by Save the Children RESET+ project. The training thought me how to write a good resume that could easily be noticed, and land a job interview. With the new knowledge and skills that I obtained from the training, I was able to secure a decent job at the Ethiopian Road Enterprise where I now work as a casher in the toll plaza at the Ethio- Djibouti expressway. Currently, I earn a monthly salary of 4,000 Birr ($114) which is good enough to support my family and myself.
Prior to the training by Save the Children, I had completed 12th grade and stayed at home without a job. I was helping my parents by looking after our livestock and supporting my mother with some household chores. Save the Children opened up the window of opportunity for me to get a job at the road enterprise here at Biye Diddle. I am grateful for the support.
These days, many adolescents from this area and other parts of the country involve in illegal and risky migration to the Middle East and Europe in search of a better life. This is mainly due to lack of employment opportunities in the nearby villages and towns. If I did not have this opportunity, my fate would have been the same. I could have tried to leave the country illegally and perhaps ended up dying at sea like so many other youth in this area. It is sad to hear such stories of youth who lost their lives trying to find a better life.
In the future, I plan to continue my higher education and assume a managerial position. My advice to other youth is to look for similar opportunities and take advantage of them like I did.
Save the Children’s RESET plus project, which is implemented through consortium members of (ORDA, UNISOD and Oxfam) focuses on providing different skill trainings for unemployed youth in the target areas. So far, over a thousand adolescents have completed their training and 166 have managed get gainful employment.
RESET plus project is also setting up a ‘One stop Center’ in the target areas that will help young people aged 17 - 25 to get basic skills they need to get employment opportunities in their locality. This will involve providing access to computers, help with preparing CVs and provide training on basic communication skills. The project also plans to conduct assessment on the type of skills the nearby industrial parks require and link them with vocational training centres to provide similar skills for targeted young people.
