Most African youngsters, especially Cameroonians, are at heightened risk because they are idle.
Hundreds of thousands of young people are unemployed and many are on the street or in more risky spaces; their formal education did not prepare them as job creators nor exploiter of their rich natural environments.
Thus, aware of the poor work ethic and entrepreneurial deficiencies in the general population and young people in particular, the HDRC has designed this program to re-orient youth into responsible and productive values for effective and productive entry or re-insertion into the workforce through knowledge and skills training in assorted vocational fields – ICTs, dressmaking, home décor and domestic appliances, craftwork, carpentry, etc. – in partnership with local apprenticeship facilities and agencies.
Considering the poor and declining work habits in the public and private sectors in Africa in general and Cameroon in particular as well as the lack of the ability for self-employment and productive work life, the program also intends to mount Vocational Training to 're-educate' and re-insert both employers and employees and the jobless into productive values and practical skills of Project Making and Management and Human Services Psychology that underlie customer satisfaction, successful entrepreneurship, and profitable investment.
Training is community-oriented and focuses on the clientele, product consumers, vulnerable children/youth, fragile families/communities and the civil society at large.
Its aim is to envision projects and services that can rekindle and bolster positive work ethic, customer satisfaction, agricultural production, psychological sense of community, and the family-community frontline responses through income generating activities (IGA) and other solidarity/coping strategies.
The training extends to innovative lay/peer counselling.
The aim of the lay and peer counsellor training track is to creatively equip civil society, especially young people with simplified counselling knowledge, people-oriented sensitivity, life skills and techniques to prepare and dispense service projects for peasant farmers, psychosocial and spiritual support to the needy, especially the stigma and discrimination suffered by the disabled, the elderly, and HIV/AIDS infected and affected persons.