Banyan Global implemented the Honduras Workforce Development (WFD) Activity under the United States Agency for International Development’s (USAID) YouthPower Implementation indefinite delivery, indefinite quantity contract. Named Empleando Futuros (Employing Futures), the WFD Activity targeted at-risk youth living in the seven Honduran municipalities that are most affected by violence, crime, and irregular migration: Tegucigalpa, San Pedro Sula, Choloma, Tela, La Ceiba, Villanueva, and La Lima, which is an important part of the strategic 2014 “Alliance for Prosperity in the Northern Triangle.” The Banyan Global team developed pathways, partnerships, and instruments targeting at-risk youth, implementing a comprehensive training-and-mentoring model. The overarching goal of Empleando Futuros was to provide realistic, sustainable opportunities for youth employment, with the understanding that sustainable employment benefits families and communities as well as the participants themselves.

With offices in Tegucigalpa and San Pedro Sula, Empleando Futuros was engaged in strengthening and expanding current workforce programs by developing relationships between the private sector and workforce-development implementers to ensure that training responds to market needs and to give at-risk youth the best opportunity for job placement and career success. By the close of the project in 2021, at least 22 Honduran institutions, associations, and chambers of commerce worked more effectively in high-violence communities, providing high quality, fully integrated job orientation and training to at-risk youth.

Within this context, the project team developed pathways, partnerships, and instruments targeting at-risk youth. These included an emphasis on positive masculinities to support changes in knowledge, attitudes and practice with respect to gender equality and gender-based violence (GBV) among at-risk youth participants in the program. To develop this approach, the project team implemented the findings of a gender analysis and strategy that Banyan Global prepared to explore societal, cultural and institutional factors that contribute to gender inequalities in Honduras, the disempowerment of women, and the continued high incidence of GBV.

Empleando Futuros also provided adaptive support amid the ongoing coronavirus pandemic, delivering at-risk youth, the private sector, civil society, and government institutions with capacity building and technical advisory assistance. For example, the Empleando Futuros team worked across chambers of commerce, the private sector, and government institutions to develop an online biosafety course–the first of its kind in Honduras. The course was developed in one month and is operational across multiple government and private sector platforms with a goal to reach 1 million citizens. Project partners, such as the Tegucigalpa Chamber of Commerce and Industry, are now customizing this course for specific industries.

Empleando Futuros also supported the country’s journey to self-reliance. The project team worked collaboratively with key government stakeholders, such as the Honduran National Professional Training Institute (INFOP), to institutionalize the use of its training programs and tools. This included a set of seventeen training modules on life skills, basic labor competencies, and mentoring. As a USAID partner organization, Empleando Futuros recognized that making resources available in ways that can be adapted and used by donor organizations and the general public is an invaluable asset for sustainability today and in the future.

Banyan Global’s submission with USAID/Honduras to the 2019 Collaborating, Learning, and Adapting (CLA) Case Competition on how CLA has improved the Empleando Futuros project was selected as a winner and judges’ favorite. For more information, follow Empleando Futuros on Twitter, Facebook, or Instagram.