Promotion of Youth Employment towards Poverty Reduction in Lesotho (YEP) programme (UNDP/ILO/UNICEF), implemented together with the Ministry of Gender and Youth, Sports and Recreation, has been contributing towards creating and enabling national environment for the promotion of youth employment and enterprise development to support poverty reduction initiatives in Lesotho. In 2009, 685 youth (youth includes men and women who are 15 to 35 years old) were trained in Start and Improve Your Business (SIYB) entrepreneurship course, out of which 239 youth were orphans and vulnerable youth (OVCs) or OVC care takers.

As a consequence of high prevalence of HIV and AIDS, there are a significant number of OVCs in Lesotho. The project aims to help OVCs and care takers to find the means of setting up their own businesses and generating income. The training is provided to the OVCs and care takers without any cost, whereas the other youth have to pay a fee of 100 Maloti (approximately 13 USD). 273 enterprises were set up and the companies provided employment to 446 people. 70 businesses were established by OVC and OVC care takers.

To address the challenge of limited access to financing, training of trainers on Village Savings and Loan Association (VSLA) was provided to all the SIYB trainers (30 trainers). After the training the trainers started helping the trainees to form savings groups, from which they could lend money to set up their business. 125 savings groups were established and the savings gathered totalled M137,407.00 (USD18,320.00).

The project is now graduating from its pilot phase into a full fledged programme including elements of labour market information to enhance the issues of skills development in the educational sector with the requirements of the market and an focus on social cohesion to strengthen the tri-partite dialogue on youth employment issues. This new phase of the programme was launched in January 2010 and activities are already ongoing.

A 22- year old Mr. Thebane started a brick manufacturing business to support his family financially. He received SIYB training and a micro loan of 385 USD from Modiko Trust, which he used to buy 40 bags of cement. He hired three casual workers and together they made 800 blocks of bricks. He sold the bricks for 1,560 USD and used the profit to pay a salary for himself and his employees and continued the business. He is now able to pay the school fees for his three siblings and assists buying food for his family. Before the training he didn’t save, but now he has a bank account and he is able to save minimum 130 USD per month. His advice to other young people is: ‘they should believe in themselves, not just depend on employment.’