How Livelihood Bootcamps Empower Out-of-School Women like Rose
Kenyan single mother of three, Rose, is one of millions of young women in Africa in danger of being left behind because they don’t complete secondary education. “When my mother died, my father married another woman who had children older than us. My father was focused on his new family, and my school fees were not being paid. So, I made the decision to get married,” Rose explains.
When her marriage broke down, the young mother struggled to provide for her children. Through Educate!, she is now thriving as the owner of a second-hand clothing stall.
But Rose’s story is all too familiar. In East Africa, around 50% of secondary-age youth are not in school, due to reasons ranging from lack of resources to family changes, and insufficient infrastructure. In many rural areas, the outlook is even more dire – with as few as 5% of girls on track to complete secondary school.
These statistics are not only troubling in terms of gender equity, but they also have far-reaching implications for the global community. By 2035, Africa will contribute more people to the workforce each year than the rest of the world combined. Yet many young Africans lack the practical skills to find a job or start a business in the largely informal labor market they are entering.
At Educate!, we are driven by the conviction that all youth, whether they can access traditional secondary school or not, deserve a post-primary education that equips them with the tools to improve their livelihoods and become drivers of development.
Rose was empowered through SkillUp, Educate!’s innovative, cost-effective bootcamp that combines skills training, practical experience, and individualized support over six weeks in Kenya. SkillUp supports young people to gain critical transferable skills, alongside the business skills needed to successfully launch a small enterprise.
For Rose, lessons on communication and budgeting have been key to her success. “I greet everyone who passes by whether they’re customers or not. Sometimes you find that a person decides to buy on the spot, which brings me joy. After learning about budgeting from Educate!, I'm able to meet my family’s needs with the profits I get every day.”
Rose cheerfully interacts with a customer at her clothing stall.
Educate! bootcamps are built on a strong foundation of evidence, including a randomized controlled trial on a 3-week skills bootcamp for secondary students called SEED (Skills for Effective Entrepreneurship Development) that we helped support in 2013. Participants in this program experienced 30% income gains three years later. For over 10 years, we have also delivered an in-school model in Uganda, with proven impact on gender equity-related outcomes.
Now, we’re striving to replicate these results for a different demographic: the hardest-to-reach population of out-of-school girls. Led by highly-skilled local trainers who come from the communities we serve, SkillUp has reached 3,600 youth to date – the majority of whom are girls and young women – across four counties in Kenya. The experience culminates with participants designing a business plan and being paired with mentors. These steps ensure youth are equipped to start an enterprise of their own right away and continue to receive support after training has ended.
After participating in SkillUp, graduates have successfully started – and significantly grown – businesses of their own. Rose’s clothing sales enabled her to support her family during the pandemic, and others have even gone so far as to save enough from their businesses to establish homes for their families.
As Educate! continues to scale this model and leverage data to inform its design, we’re encouraged by the strong validation we’ve seen on key economic measures.
Three months after a bootcamp in September 2022 targeting 1,000 youth, participants experienced an increase of more than 100% in average income, a nearly 140% increase in business ownership, and a 70% increase in maintaining savings practices. Additionally, participants who listed family and spouses as the main source of income fell by almost two-thirds.
Educate! is driven by the immense impact we can potentially have on women’s lives and the development of rural communities. Equipped with the soft and hard skills to gain independence, build agency, and thrive in the years to come, girls and young women like Rose can change the trajectory of their lives and transform their communities.