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Sport-for-employability as an innovative practice in addressing youth underemployment in sub-Saharan Africa

Youth unemployment reflects the lack of economic growth and prosperity for many nations in sub-Saharan Africa where the average age of the population is estimated to be 24 years in 2050. The study generates insights informed by preliminary findings of an ambitious 6-month government-funded “youth em...

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Autor principal: Burnett, Cora
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: Frontiers Media S.A. 2023
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9939432/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/36814704
http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fspor.2022.1001435
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author Burnett, Cora
author_facet Burnett, Cora
author_sort Burnett, Cora
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description Youth unemployment reflects the lack of economic growth and prosperity for many nations in sub-Saharan Africa where the average age of the population is estimated to be 24 years in 2050. The study generates insights informed by preliminary findings of an ambitious 6-month government-funded “youth employment program” in South Africa. The paper reports on qualitative data emanating from two field visits per organization providing the baseline of this national project as the researcher had been tasked to develop the monitoring, evaluation, and learning (MEL) system. About 4,000 of this population are from Special Olympics and comprise of youth with complex needs, while the baseline focus on 45 youth as part of the unified leadership initiative (partnering with a mainstream individual). The MEL system allows for a mixed-method approach, but the paper draws on narrative data obtained during field visits where 10 managers were interviewed and 47 youth interns (42.5% men and 57.5% women) took part in focus group discussions. The interview and focus group questions explored their work-related histories and profiles, current involvement with a structured program, experiences, perceptions, expectations, and pragmatic recommendations. Emerging themes and analysis report five main themes that refer to (i) personal employment histories, (ii) local embeddedness, (iii) a typology of work, (iv) program benefits, and (v) enablers and goal setting. Contextual realities shaped the agency of all research participants, but promising results show positive outcomes of soft skills associated with the level of employability and job-seeking strategies.
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spelling pubmed-99394322023-02-21 Sport-for-employability as an innovative practice in addressing youth underemployment in sub-Saharan Africa Burnett, Cora Front Sports Act Living Sports and Active Living Youth unemployment reflects the lack of economic growth and prosperity for many nations in sub-Saharan Africa where the average age of the population is estimated to be 24 years in 2050. The study generates insights informed by preliminary findings of an ambitious 6-month government-funded “youth employment program” in South Africa. The paper reports on qualitative data emanating from two field visits per organization providing the baseline of this national project as the researcher had been tasked to develop the monitoring, evaluation, and learning (MEL) system. About 4,000 of this population are from Special Olympics and comprise of youth with complex needs, while the baseline focus on 45 youth as part of the unified leadership initiative (partnering with a mainstream individual). The MEL system allows for a mixed-method approach, but the paper draws on narrative data obtained during field visits where 10 managers were interviewed and 47 youth interns (42.5% men and 57.5% women) took part in focus group discussions. The interview and focus group questions explored their work-related histories and profiles, current involvement with a structured program, experiences, perceptions, expectations, and pragmatic recommendations. Emerging themes and analysis report five main themes that refer to (i) personal employment histories, (ii) local embeddedness, (iii) a typology of work, (iv) program benefits, and (v) enablers and goal setting. Contextual realities shaped the agency of all research participants, but promising results show positive outcomes of soft skills associated with the level of employability and job-seeking strategies. Frontiers Media S.A. 2023-02-06 /pmc/articles/PMC9939432/ /pubmed/36814704 http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fspor.2022.1001435 Text en © 2023 Burnett. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY) (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) . The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) and the copyright owner(s) are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
spellingShingle Sports and Active Living
Burnett, Cora
Sport-for-employability as an innovative practice in addressing youth underemployment in sub-Saharan Africa
title Sport-for-employability as an innovative practice in addressing youth underemployment in sub-Saharan Africa
title_full Sport-for-employability as an innovative practice in addressing youth underemployment in sub-Saharan Africa
title_fullStr Sport-for-employability as an innovative practice in addressing youth underemployment in sub-Saharan Africa
title_full_unstemmed Sport-for-employability as an innovative practice in addressing youth underemployment in sub-Saharan Africa
title_short Sport-for-employability as an innovative practice in addressing youth underemployment in sub-Saharan Africa
title_sort sport-for-employability as an innovative practice in addressing youth underemployment in sub-saharan africa
topic Sports and Active Living
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9939432/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/36814704
http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fspor.2022.1001435
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