Working with youth in rural Africa

“Up the mountain.” “Down the road.” “To the other side of that hill.” All of these phrases take on a different meaning when one is working in a rural African context. The mountain doesn’t have a road, the road isn’t paved, and the hill is just one of many. When you are told that a “rural” community is such-and-such a distance from the nearest town, more often than not that town is also rural and the distance needs to be considered in terms of time rather than kilometers, since kilometers on a dirt road, after a rainstorm can mean very little. Despite these challenges and the related exhaustion, working in rural environments is where my heart lies. Meeting youth that live in these locations is inspiring and, almost inevitably, shifts one’s perspectives.

The Youth in Action (YiA) program works in this type of rural settings. YiA is a six-year program implemented by Save the Children in partnership with Mastercard Foundation. It supports rural, out-of-school girls and boys, age 12-18, in Burkina Faso, Egypt, Ethiopia, Malawi, and Uganda, helping them to improve their literacy, numeracy, and financial skills while then giving them an opportunity to either start a business, acquire vocational training, or go back to formal school. In all five YiA countries, more than half of the population lives in rural settings. In three of the countries (Ethiopia, Malawi, and Uganda) more than 80% of the population lives in rural settings. Working in such communities presents a vast array of challenges.

As a Learning and Knowledge Management Specialist, I have worked with YiA since April 2017. In August 2017, I supported the YiA Tracer Study in rural, western Uganda. The “Tracer” aims to uncover what YiA graduates have achieved nine months after graduating from the program. Part of completing the Tracer involves finding youth in remote areas. I arrived in Uganda after the participant list had been completed. However, during the research, I met a program intern who had travelled “up the mountain,” “down the road,” and “to the other side of that hill” to help locate YiA graduates. The stories that she told show some of the challenges that rural youth programming can entail.

Violet Ngonzi Kirungi, is a Ugandan university student from Kampala, the capital city of Uganda, who interned with RIDE Africa, a YiA partner organization, in July 2017. Violet’s YiA experience showed her a side of her own country that she had not yet experienced. Shortly after Violet completed her internship, I spoke with her about the challenges of locating YiA graduates and her new-found, personal definition of “rural”.

YiA works with youth in western Uganda, “near” the city of Fort Portal, but “near”, as Violet has found out is a very relative term. When I met her, Violet was full of stories from when she went deep into “the field”. Below are two stories that show her new understanding of “rural” and the new perspective that she will bring forward into her career.

My most unique memories from when I worked with YiA involve searching out past YiA graduates…

I remember travelling to a village at the border between Uganda and the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), boarding a boat to head into DRC, and finding one youth after a 3-hour search, only to wait another hour for the assessment interview to take place.

I also remember, on another day, being back on the road, attempting to track down another youth who lived very far away from where we were! The road got thinner and thinner as we approached her home and we had to go through thick bushes to get there. On our way, we almost got out of the car because we could not find our way through the thorny bushes! But, finally, we found our way out after struggling through a long, uncomfortable drive. Then for the actual assessment, under the scorching sun. Well done, task accomplished! That’s a once in a lifetime experience!

I will never forget these moments, or others, in my internship. The program is called Youth in Action, but, now, I am “youth in research”.

As Violet found out, and as I have experienced myself, rural doesn’t mean a few minutes down the road and it doesn’t mean one trip per a day. Rural can mean long hours on bumpy roads; it can mean pushing cars on flooded, muddy hillsides; and it can mean venturing to where there are no roads at all.

The challenges that rural programming can present impact both program research and program implementation. YiA youth often walk up to two hours just to reach a remote Learning Centre and their mentors need either motorcycles or strong leg muscles and long hours to reach their assigned mentees. Distance, time, and the weather are some of the most quoted programmatic challenges related to working in rural environments. While none of these challenges are within the direct control of programmers, YiA has worked hard to implement strategies to ensure that all beneficiaries can access learning and services.

Throughout five years of program implementation, YiA has worked through these roadblocks and travelled the journey to the farthest communities to ensure that youth succeed regardless of their location. For example, in Uganda, I met a group of youth from one of the remotest communities who had used their profits and new-found financial skills to purchase medical supplies and a rustic “ambulance” to better serve their village. These youth represent the thousands of YiA participants who now have an improved ability to positively impact their own communities.

When programming targets rural areas, organizations are attempting to reach the hardest-to-reach youth. Attempting to do so is not easy, but it is necessary. Youth in rural communities deserve the opportunity to change the course of their lives. YiA recognizes this. Reaching these youth is a Save the Children priority.

 

Anna Du Vent is the Learning and Knowledge Management Specialist at Save the Children Canada.