Implementing Agency:
Department For International Development (PAND)

Contractor:
The Glen Forest Training Centre Trust

APT Design and Development

Project Code: 073-680-019	Start Date: 01/04/1992	End Date: 31/03/1997
Commitment: £49 590	Status: Completed	Type of Funding: Bilateral - JFS

Project Background:
It is currently estimated that 100,000 young Zimbabweans are leaving shcool each year, seeking some form of employment; in addition, about 100,000 adults enter the labour market each year. Relatively few people are old enough to be leaning the labour market; 50% of the population nationally is still under the age of 15. The formal sector can only offer about 7,000 new employment opportunities each year, and this figure is only increasing at 1% pa, while the population is increasing at a rate of 3% pa. Thus, there is an urgent need in Zimbabwe for opportunities to be generated for employment and self-employment in the informal sector, particularly for young people in th rural areas.

The greatest barrier to such people wishing to become self-employed is considered to be the lack of practical and appropriate vocational skills. The Glen Forest Training Centre is a Zimbabwean NGO formed in 1983 to address this problem specifically; the Centre has rapidly gained a reputation as one of the best training centres for practical rural skills in Zimbabwe. Since 1986, it has trained about 2,400 people in a variety of practical and organisational skills; in the last two years, 44% of these people have been women.

Pre-training and post-training visits to trainees have been carried out by the instructors themselves; this system has provided a close connection between the individual situations of the trainees, and the contents of each course. It has become increasingly clear, however, that such visits are often not sufficient to enable people to ovecome all of the barriers encountered when going into business for the first time. Thus, while they are leaving the Centre having gained considerable competence in woodworkng, building or welding (for example), they may have such difficulty in obtaining tools, or in marketing their products, that they finally give up and rejoin the ranks of the unemployed.

Project Objectives:
The objective of the project was to install an effective and self sustaining Extension Department and Glen Forest, to assist students to join the informal sector in rural areas as skilled labour.

To improve the quality of life, and to increase opportunities for productive employment, for members of poorer rural communities.

To instal an effective and self-sustaining Extension Department at Glen Forest, to assist students to join the informal sector in the rural areas as skilled labour.

Intended Outputs:
Action Plan for project.

Trainees at Glen Forest who had not previously been using the skills gained, generating their own income in the rural areas.

Glen Forest extension staff trained, operational and integrated into structure of Centre.

Sustainable loan fund in operation.