International Youth Day: Influencing The Realities of African Youths With Tech

As the world gears up to celebrate another International youth day, it is time to take an in-depth look into the realities of African youths. For a continent with 40% of its population aged 25 and below, Africa isn’t maximizing its vast able-bodied human resource and it is cause for concern.

The problem however isn’t the youths but the circumstance of the youths. A quick Google search will show you that the problem of youths in Africa is unemployment.

However, more in-depth research will reveal that the reality of African youths is hinged on a tripartite foundation of poor education, little skill acquisition, and unemployment.

In 2022, an average of 12.7 percent of African youths were unemployed putting Africa as the continent with the highest number of unemployed youths.

The recent stats on unemployment in Africa are sobering. In 2022, an average of 12.7 percent of African youths were unemployed putting Africa as the continent with the highest number of unemployed youths. It’s not very difficult then, to connect the stunted economic growth in the continent to the realities of its youth.

Globally, we are in one of the most exciting ages in the world, where technology is the holy Grail and technological advancements hit the market every day; each one savvier than the last. Individuals and organizations trip over themselves to solve the problems of humanity with technological solutions.

This brings to mind the question, could there be a solution for the reality of African youths in tech?

There could be.

Across Nigeria and Africa, several organizations, individuals, and institutions exist solely to spread awareness of tech and aid millions of unemployed youths in skill acquisition. These organizations spring up in every city and country across the continent, some even spanning across country borders, reaching their tentacles of knowledge and support to young Africans willing to improve their plight.

The work of these organizations can be split into three focuses — education, training, and employment. Of the organizations mentioned above, some focus solely on information dissemination. They preach the gospel of tech, introducing thousands of African youths to the vast permutations of possibilities that exist for them in a time where tech has shrunken the world into a global talent marketplace. The efforts of these organizations are laudable and highly respected because they give the youths hope for a better future.

The second group of organizations build on the efforts of the first group. Their singular goal is to train as many African youths in highly marketable and employable tech skills. These organizations sometimes sponsor the learning journey of individuals by providing support resources such as laptops and stipends. Sometimes, they also work on the third focus, employment, by partnering with organizations and businesses to pair up students with internship roles.

In addition to these groups of organizations, there are many individuals who support the growth of African youths and contribute their time and resources to see it happen.

Already there is a movement of tech influencing the bleak plight of the African youth.

But where is Nsonye in this fight? How are we, as an organization, lending ourselves to this battle?

Nsonye is an organization that is intimately acquainted with the reality of youths, specifically, women and girls.

How Does Nsonye Help?

Nsonye is an organization that is intimately acquainted with the reality of youths, specifically, women and girls. Our work is important because as bad as it is for African youths in general, it is even worse for women and girls. At 9 percent unemployment rate to men’s 7.4 percent, these unemployment stats show the gap in employment and earnings between both genders in Africa.

And this is where we concentrate our resources — in training women and girls to shorten this gap and vastly improve their realities as the current runt of the economic ladder.

What do we do?

We educate, train, and mentor women and girls between the ages of 15 and 35 to learn tech skills and become economically emancipated.

In our almost two years of operation, we have trained over 500 women and girls in high-end and highly sought-after tech skills courtesy of our yearly boot camps. In addition to this, we are an avid supporter of women trying to change their circumstances, and we have directly supported over 50 women in their journeys with laptops, MiFis, etc,

We have also created a community of over 2500 women and girls across our Slack and social media channels dedicated to mentoring, and guiding new entrants through their tech journeys.

Despite these achievements, we consider our greatest achievement to be education. With our blogs, newsletter emails, and social media platforms, we have educated over 200,000 women.

Changing the realities of African youths requires that we adopt the butterfly effect where each individual, organization, agency, and government body makes a positive impact in its own small way until we have a tsunami of change.

How Can You Help?

Changing the bleak situation of African youths isn’t the job of a few token communities and organizations. It’s a job for you and me; individuals who can change the reality of one African youth by sponsoring their skill acquisition journey, mentoring them, and supporting their dreams. Looking to sponsor the work we do at Nsonye, donate here or reach out for more information.

It’s a job for policy-making agencies and government bodies — to form policies that support skill acquisition and development of human capital. For example, skill acquisition can be included in the regular curriculum in schools, and provisions made for students to gain quality knowledge. This will go a long way to encourage the development of human capital.

Changing the realities of African youths requires that we adopt the butterfly effect where each individual, organization, agency, and government body make a positive impact in their own small way until we have a tsunami of change.

Conclusion

Happy International Youth Day!

Every year, on August 12th, we say the above phrase as a ritual and make social media posts with colorful banners to celebrate the youths in our communities. This year, another August 12th has rolled around and in addition to celebrating the grit and resilience of the youth, we should also highlight their realities in the hopes that we can each contribute to influencing it for the better.

If you’d like to support Nsonye’s work with women and girls, reach out to us.

Nsonye is a non-profit organization working to bridge the tech-gender gap that exists in the tech industry. We do this through our unique model of training via our upskilling programs, mentoring through our one-on-one mentorship sessions, and building resilient communities that encourage women and girls to thrive within tech.

Interested in what we do? Send us an email today at hello@nsonye.org or donate to further our impact.

Are you looking for a #womenintech community to grow in and get exposed to opportunities to get started within tech? Then join us on our Slack channel here.

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