What is Skillup

Skill Up! offers young people;around 25,000 young women and men between the ages of 15 and 35 the opportunity to gain professional qualifications and the chance to earn an income as entrepreneurs. The training programs in the individual countries are practical, needs-based, adapted to the respective location and aimed at young people – especially young women – who live under challenging conditions. In addition to manual skills, the trainees acquire business basics and everyday skills such as reliability, assertiveness and teamwork. These so-called life skills strengthen the trainees’ self-confidence, which is critical for their chosen career paths. At the same time, the program qualifies trainers, supports local companies, develops curricula and educational concepts, and strengthens government structures so that the projects can run on their own in the long term.

Following expansion in 2019, young people have earned qualifications through the Skill Up! program in Afghanistan, India, Kenya, Malawi, Nepal, Sierra Leone, Tajikistan, and Uganda.

Due to the remarkable successes in these countries, WHH helped expand the program again in 2022 to four additional French-speaking countries in particularly fragile contexts: Burundi, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Mali, and the Central African Republic. In addition to the central goal of bringing young people in these challenging contexts into profitable employment or self-employment, WHH aims further to develop the program-specific training approach through the expansion and adapt it for fragile, unstable contexts.