Empower Youth For Work

White Rice x Oxfam

BEHAVIOUR CHANGE COMMUNICATION

Challenge

In Pakistan, 30% of 18-24 year-olds are unemployed and excluded from decision-making processes in their homes and communities. A lack of youth voice and representation leads to policies and practices that are not inclusive and are not reflective of the issues they face. We recognize the potential Human-centered Design (HCD) has in co-creating an ecosystem for youth to actively participate while keeping the end-user at the center of the entire project design process.

Approach

For the first time in Pakistan, an HCD approach was implemented across the whole project life-cycle. White Rice partnered with Oxfam Pakistan to help their Empower Youth for Work (EYW) Team implement the HCD process to empower youth in the semi-urban and rural communities of climate-affected districts of Punjab and Sindh.

For 18 months, the White Rice team facilitated a series of workshops to help the EYW Team get comfortable with using an HCD approach in across the project. The workshops guided them in designing and testing products and services for job seekers, micro-entrepreneurs, farmers, and startups, before the large-scale implementation of the programme.

The proceeding workshops were organized around the different stages of HCD, including the phases of inspiration, ideation, and implementation. Workshops for co-creation, pilot planning, and scaling up efforts followed suit. Through various sessions, White Rice helped Oxfam and its field partners segment markets, map customer journeys, assess business models, improve service delivery, and use creativity and ideation to develop solutions.