With life skills at the core of IYF’s pursuit of positive youth development, we’ve identified five critical truths about these competencies:

• Life skills are learned, not innate. While it was long believed that attributes such as grit and empathy were innate personality traits, research now demonstrates that these competencies can be taught and learned.¹
• Life skills can be learned through adolescence and early adulthood.² Previously, educators believed that life skills—if they could be learned—needed to be acquired in early childhood. Our own work with Passport to Success® is proof of the transformative value of social-emotional learning for youth.
• Life skills become even more valuable over time. Technical skills can quickly become outdated, but employers are always looking to hire people who manage their time well, think critically, and set goals effectively. These skills are hard to find among entry-level job seekers,³ and they prove increasingly valuable throughout a person’s career.⁴
• Young people with well-developed life skills tend to achieve better career outcomes and experience fewer social problems. Equipping youth with social and emotional skills improves their chances for success in school, life, and work. It may offer even greater safeguards than socio-economic environment, family stability, and cognitive skills.⁵
• Life skills can and should be measured. Mounting evidence shows not only that life skills can be measured, but that properly done assessments position youth for success by validating their competency across a range of sought-after skills.⁶ IYF is currently developing a workforce readiness assessment, in partnership with ProExam, experts in non-cognitive skills testing.

“I never say goodbye [to my trainees], because who says goodbye to the future. Rather, my message is: ‘I’ll see you on the road to success. Know I’ll always be there for you.’”

—Arsen Kambalov 22-year-old Passport to Success trainer for Chevron-supported Zangar initiative in Kazakhstan

• Lay the groundwork. Taking time to understand local needs—and listen to youth views—is critical. In Africa, embracing young people’s need and desire for mixed livelihoods is helping IYF, in partnership with The MasterCard Foundation, better support local organizations working to deliver tailored solutions. By beginning with an understanding of the importance of having more than one job, including self-employment, we can maximize opportunities to drive positive change.

• Flexible tools and trainings lead to more sustainable results. A potent example is our online Quality Standards Assessment tool, built in partnership with the InterAmerican Development Bank through its Multilateral Investment Fund and its Labor Markets Unit.. Under the New Employment Opportunities (NEO) initiative, the tool is being used in Latin America to facilitate conversation around change rather than dictating a course of action. As a result, local youth service providers are able to reflect on their work, process tailored feedback and coaching from IYF’s regional experts, and commit to a plan for achieving desired outcomes.
• Lasting change is most likely to result from policy change paired with building the capacity of local youth-serving organizations. In Chile and Argentina, where new youth employment policy priorities paved the way for reform, IYF is working in partnership with Walmart to scale retail-specific training and job placement to reach thousands of youth.

• Identify champions within systems who can advocate on your behalf. Cultivating relationships with people inside the system who support your work—and will advocate for new ways of operating—can exponentially increase impact. In Palestine, mainstreaming quality career guidance within universities required working closely with mid-level directors, who played a key advocacy role with the university leadership. Equally important was working with partners like Silatech and Microsoft to develop an online employability portal to streamline services.
• Changing systems takes time. Build in time to accommodate new ways of thinking and operating within large-scale systems. Our most comprehensive initiatives that achieve scale are implemented over three to six years.

“With advice from IYF specialists, we made changes in our management systems and developed a plan for employer outreach. The workshops provided us with tools for planning our youth services and assessing our trainers. We hope to use the tools we learned in all our work with youth.”

—Alis Muñoz Hernández Director ICENF, a community-based organization in Colombia that benefited from the Quality Standards Assessment tool

• Innovative young leaders are responsible for some of the most creative solutions to local and global issues. IYF has seen the power of their work through our signature social entrepreneurship initiative, YouthActionNet®. Dr. Carolina Candelario, who delivers mobile medical care to isolated indigenous communities in Mexico, and Ayaz Hassan, who empowers women refugees to combat gender-based violence in Iraq, are just two of the almost 1,400 YouthActionNet fellows around the globe that we’ve supported through our network of 23 leadership institutes.
• Young people are job creators, not just jobseekers. We know the broader benefits of supporting youth entrepreneurship. When young business owners succeed, their ventures contribute to the local economy and create employment opportunities, especially for fellow youth.
• Youth voices are essential at all levels, and especially for higher-level decision-making. At IYF, the fresh, locally-rooted perspectives of our two designated youth board members help ensure that our organization truly responds to youth priorities and needs.
• Working peer-to-peer, young people make powerful trainers and mentors. Who knows young people better than other young people? We’ve witnessed the unique way young Passport to Success® life skills trainers and mentors in initiatives like Youth:Work Mexico connect with participants. Through YouthActionNet, University Connect has proven a powerful way for social entrepreneurs and college students to share knowledge, while inspiring students with the notion that social change can—and should—be part of any career path.

“The unrelenting resilience that has historically characterized African populations is slowly, but surely, turning into sustainable problem-solving by youth committed to locally-led development.”

— Peggy Mativo Founder of PACE, which trains Kenyan high school graduates as volunteer teaching assistants; 2014 Laureate Global Fellow and IYF board member

IYF’s mission and work lie at the nexus of these two global imperatives—preparing youth for productive work and supporting their role as leaders. In 2015, we put forth a bold new strategic plan to maximize our impact in these areas. We also introduced exciting new initiatives:

• Partnering with The MasterCard Foundation to drive sustainable changes in the Technical and Vocational Education Training (TVET) and entrepreneurship systems in Mozambique and Tanzania
• Launching our first-ever initiative in Kazakhstan, funded by Chevron, to better prepare youth for 21st century jobs through a combination of life skills and STEM instruction
• Working in Mexico with technical education providers to develop new curricula, upgrade teachers’ ability to develop students’ socioemotional skills through PTS teacher training, and improve students’ access to relevant information on job opportunities, thanks to our partnership with the PepsiCo Foundation.
• Laying the groundwork to train educators and service providers in our home city of Baltimore to deliver IYF’s signature Passport to Success® life skills curriculum

Beyond these efforts to scale effective programs, we seek to influence how youth work is carried out. Our partnership with the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), a premier think tank, offers a platform for high-level dialogue around youth issues—and solutions. CSIS rightly understands that youth needs and youth voices must be part of much larger conversations when it comes the environment, economic growth, and global security.

With a heightened focus on youth issues globally, this may well be remembered as the time when young people garnered the attention and resources they so deserve. And that’s good news for all of us.