Banyan Global is implementing 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, this project targets at-risk youth living in the five Honduran municipalities that are most affected by violence and crime. This is an important part of the strategic “Alliance for Prosperity of the Northern Triangle,” initiated in 2014. The Banyan Global team has developed pathways, partnerships, and instruments targeting at-risk youth, implementing a comprehensive training-and-mentoring model. The overarching goal of Empleando Futuros is to provide realistic, sustainable opportunities for youth employment.

With offices in Tegucigalpa and San Pedro Sula, Empleando Futuros is engaged in strengthening and expanding current workforce programs, through its programs in high crime areas of five municipalities: Tegucigalpa, San Pedro Sula, Choloma, Tela, and La Ceiba. The program develops 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. It is expected that by the close of the project in 2021, many institutions will be working more effectively in high-violence communities, providing high-quality, fully integrated orientation and training to at-risk youth. Sustainable employment benefits families and communities, as well as the participants themselves.

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.