Connecting Out of School Youth with Jobs and Mentors

An online platform connecting potential employers with students/alumni of PCC’s out of school youth program. It will provide online resumes of students plus 400 alumni, skill matching alumni to potential jobs, mentoring and online learning modules. Potential to scale to other NGOs that work with disadvantaged youth.

PCC is dedicated to empowering youth, one of our key focuses is our residential program for disadvantaged youth. Each year, approximately 30 students complete the six-month program, which gives them the opportunity to informally complete their high school education. The program also covers the following modules; personal development, environmental education, career development, vocational training and entrepreneurship training. 

Once the students have completed the program, they are competent and ready to enter the workforce. However, we are experiencing a disconnect with local employers, resulting in 50% of students not securing employment after graduation. 

Our solution is to create an online platform to link potential employers with the students and encourage them to develop a mentoring relationship. This will allow the employer to have a positive influence into the student’s development and give them an advantage when entering the workforce of the future.

The online platform will also be available to our database of over 400 alumni. Our alumni are looked upon as role models in their communities and show others that no matter your background or financial situation you can rise above. We believe our students and alumni have the skills and motivation to go on to do great things, all they need is the opportunity.  

We have identified two problems:

1. 50% of our graduates cannot find good employment (above minimum wage, full time). The graduates that are able to find employment are usually put on short term contracts or given “on call” positions, which means they do not have a steady source of income. Outside of job fairs (eg recruitment drive for new shopping malls) they do not know where to apply for jobs.

2. Local employers feel frustrated they can’t find reliable employees locally and experience high staff turnover.

There are more than 2 million unemployed people in the Philippines. Youth aged between 15-24 years make up 48.2 percent of this. (2016 Labor Force Survey, Department of Labor and Employment). 

The online platform will create a direct link between the alumni and employers, thus helping to close the gap on youth unemployment. The online platform will also foster an ongoing relationship between the alumni and potential employers to ensure long term employment.

Our solution will positively impact the lives of our alumni, by being able to secure good employment opportunities they will be able to break the poverty cycle within their communities, increasing youth employment in the Philippines. 

Starting with the students from batch 21 (2018) we will active their online profiles and aim to ensure they all have an opportunity to secure employment after graduation. Once this is complete, we will expand the platform to include profiles of our 400 + alumni.

Track usage/number of profiles. - Have 60 of active users (30 employers and 30 students from batch 21) on the platform in first year.

Amount of employed alumni vs to unemployed alumni. Once the alumni have secured employment their employment status will be updated, we can track the amount of employed vs unemployed status. - Increase number of employed alumni in second year.

On going check ins with employer and employee to see how they are settling in. Record how long each alumnus stays at their job for. - Increase employee retention rate for employers.

The platform is a private social networking site closed to our alumni and approved local businesses. It uses technology in an innovative way that the students have not had access to before. 

There is no other platform that provides employment and mentoring opportunities to out of school youth in Palawan, The Philippines.

We are working with our stakeholders to develop the platform. We believe we can develop a successful solution together. Our solution is focused on creating and nurturing long term relationships between our alumni and local employers. 

We are using technology as the tool to connect people in a mentoring capacity, with the aim of employment. 

The platform will assist in bridging the youth unemployment gap by connecting the alumni to employers/mentors. 

We encourage the mentoring to be face to face when possible to strengthen the relationship.

The platform will be online, mobile friendly and free for all users. 

We will have computers at our office in Puerto Princesa City and at the student dormitory outside the city for those that do not have access to the internet.

PCC is a not-for-profit that was founded nearly 20 years ago. Financially PCC rely on grants and funding from their pool of partners. PCC have a separate livelihood business plan to create an income source to be self-funding. 

• Network of interested employers from a range of industries with the time to mentor alumni.
• Limited internet coverage/electricity at the dormitory.
• The alumni come from rural communities outside of Puerto Princesa City, if they secure employment within the city they will also need accommodation close to their employment. 

https://www.facebook.com/palcorps/

We believe we can help solve the problem of preparing disadvantage youth for the workforce of the future. Our solution uses technology to directly link youth to employers. We believe our solution can also help the lives of other youth, not just our alumni. We have already spoken to another NGO in Cebu, The Philippines who works with disadvantage youth. If our project is successful they are interested in replicating the platform.

• Atlassian 
• Technical Education and Skills Development Authority

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