National Youth Service Corps

The Gen Now: Youth Impact Leaders activity is a partnership between the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) and Glasswing International to lay the groundwork for a National Youth Service Corps in Guatemala and Honduras. 

The National Youth Service Corps will be a means to: (i) improve opportunities for young people, ages 15-29, to advance and contribute to their communities’ development; (ii) increase their leadership skills; and (iii) lead to greater resilience and hope for youth and their communities.

GEOGRAPHICAL AND DEMOGRAPHIC APPROACH

The National Youth Service Corps will be launched in Guatemala and Honduras. Youth, stakeholders, and experts will participate in the design and validation of the model to ensure that the prototypes respond to each country’s context and needs, support local ownership, are sustainable, and engage youth in meaningful community service initiatives.

CONTEXT AND CHALLENGES

The design of a country-specific National Youth Service model requires the involvement of various sectors. Gen Now will facilitate partnership and stakeholder engagement to ensure the active participation of youth, private sector, academia, think tanks, civil society organizations, and local and national public administration institutions, in the co-creation of the National Youth Service model in each of the countries. The engagement process is oriented to collect lessons learned, best practices, community service ideas, and the operational and financial conditions that would enable a sustainable, youth-focused service model.

APPROACH AND RESULTS

This initiative has three major components:

1. Facilitate Partnership and Stakeholder Engagement: to ensure active participation of multiple stakeholders and to collect lessons learned, best practices, community service ideas, and the operational and financial conditions that would enable a sustainable, youth-focused service model.
2. Implement a Robust Learning Agenda: to inform the design of the National Youth Service model, a solid learning agenda will be developed to generate evidence-based information on youth service models globally.
3. Design Business/Implementation Plans with Standard Operating Procedures: to develop a business model with standard operating procedures to launch a National Youth Service Corps in Guatemala and Honduras.

The National Youth Service will empower Central American youth by engaging them in their communities, providing needed skills training for future employment in local businesses, and can channel additional income into local economies, for example through cash stipends for youth volunteers.