By Ahmed El Assal, Meta Bilgrav Bodenhagen and Shekhar Anand For growth to be inclusive, decent work must be equally accessible to women and men. The Youth Participation and Employment (YPE) program has been trying to meet this objective by addressing factors of inequality. Youth Participation and Employment (YPE) programme, implemented by Oxfam IBIS, in the framework of the Arab …
COVID-19: WIDOWS SPEAK ON DEAD JOBS, VIRTUAL FUNERALS & THE NEW NORMAL IN SIAYA
In June and July 2021, Roseline Orwa and Valentine Linette visited 5 villages in Siaya, Kenya when Nyanza province region was on a 3-month lockdown. The highly transmissible, more contagious Delta variant of Coronavirus was destroying the region. There were 2 to 5 funerals in each of the villages we visited. An elderly widow from one of the Rona Foundation groups had just …
Boosting decent employment for Africa’s youth
by Marieke Meeske and Saskia van Veen Youth in Africa face a myriad of constraints that affect their access to and success in the labour market. The current COVID-19 pandemic, which disproportionally affects young people, puts further pressure on the job market. Youth employment policies and programmes try to tackle these constraints, e.g. by providing training and skills development to youth (supply side) or development of small and …
Shabana’s Garden of Happiness
by Kazi Rabeya Ame and Munir Hossain Shabana Begum, a young woman from Kurigram district located in the northern Bangladesh was married off when she was just 14 years old. Her husband was daily wager and used to work for others’ farm land. Her husband was the only earning member in the family and the money he earned was insufficient …
Ten lessons in promoting inclusive entrepreneurship program
by Ahmed Elassal and Shekhar Anand Most countries in the MENA region continue to marginalize the most vulnerable adolescents and youth, particularly young women, poor, refugees or people with disabilities, impacting their ability to realize their full potential (UNICEF). Young entrepreneurs find it extremely difficult to run their micro enterprises, small businesses, and start-ups in the same manner as they were doing …
Increasing Participation & Creating Inclusive Employment Opportunities for Youth
by Ahmed Elassal and Shekhar Anand Oxfam’s Youth Participation and Employment (YPE) Program supported by the Danish Arab Partnership Program (DAPP) works with a wide range of partners in Egypt, Jordan, Morocco, and Tunisia. The program developed interesting interventions for youth employment responding to the context, needs and factors such as skill levels of entrepreneurs, educational and geographic background, extent of exposure …
Ensuring privacy during phone interviews? A written conversation
by Mahran Alhayek, Melissa Harris and Sarah Nijholt As the World Health Organisation declared COVID as a pandemic on March 11, 2020, a group of staff from Oxfam, its partner organization and consultants were preparing to conduct interviews with women affected by ongoing conflicts and the presence of ISIS in Kirkuk Governorate, in Iraq, as part of Oxfam’s Effectiveness Review series. We put the …
Committed to Care: Towards a Feminist Future at the Generation Equality Forum
by Amar Nijhawan, Amber Parkes and Julie Thekkudan Generation Equality Forum: A blueprint for gender equality “Human rights are women’s rights and women’s rights are human rights” – a key refrain from the Fourth United Nations World Conference on Women in Beijing in 1995. This was a galvanising moment for the women’s rights and feminist movement globally, putting forward a bold vision for the realisation …
COVID19: WIDOWHOOD ‘AGENCY’, EXPOSED BURDENS, CULTURE & GENDER ALLIES
Roseline Orwa and Valentine Linet set out in June 2021 to understand how widows in rural Siaya were coping and managing during Covid-19. With majority being survivors of two pandemics – HIV and Covid-19, we asked them how they wanted to engage. From which we employed deep sensitivity and a story telling approach during one-on-one interviews. In this blog, we …
Corona Boom: How supermarkets became pandemic winners while women workers lose out
With nearly 85% of the adult population having received at least one vaccination, UK citizens can look forward to seeing loved ones, having a holiday and going back into the workplace. By contrast, in the countries Oxfam where conducted research in 2020 (Brazil, Thailand, India, Pakistan and South Africa), just 9% had received a Covid jab by late June 2021, …