In the years to come, the young generation is going to be a strong agent of change to tackle the burning issue of climate change.

Our role, as a development NGO, is to strengthen their capacity to voice out their concerns and to help them enter the job market to change things from inside and from the bottom up. The new project we are launching in Tajikistan aims at doing exactly that.

The new project we are launching in Tajikistan aims at doing exactly that.

In order to contribute to empower youth, especially in rural areas of the country, Geres is launching a series of actions in collaboration with the local NGO’s Little Earth and Umedbakhsh. Little Earth has worked since 1997 as an environmental activist NGO in raising awareness related to natural resources management and climate changes, specifically targeting youth across Tajikistan.

Umedbakhsh is specialized in the Technical and Vocational Education and Training (TVET) sector, developing training courses and supporting their implementation at school level. Together, we aim at bridging the current climate-related knowledge gap and providing youth with concrete professional opportunities that are consistent with the environmental crisis.

Preparing the country for environmental changes

Besides small-scale agriculture, job opportunities are indeed scarce in rural areas of Tajikistan, pushing a large part of the population to migrate to neighbouring countries for seasonal work and leaving the outlook bleak for youth about to enter professional life. On the other hand, the global environmental crisis is likely to have a terrible impact, firstly on water resources, affecting not only crop irrigation but also hydroelectric power production.

In a perspective of transformational change, Geres and its partners wish to break down barriers for the youth by raising awareness on climate change, making the education system more conducive for individual initiatives and creating green jobs.

We are convinced that youth can lead behavior changes in their communities and across the country and can contribute in their professional life to climate action in order to improve Tajikistan’s resilience to environmental changes.

Mobilization of the youth in rural areas

To do so, 36 youth groups, representing 900 teenagers and young adults, will be targeted in 20 villages of 4 different districts.

They all have a limited understanding of climate issues but they will see their awareness and capacities of action improved through the establishment of eco-clubs as well as the identification and training of leaders to support small scale project implementation at community level to achieve change.

On the other hand, Tajikistan is currently in high demand for the construction of new houses, which represents not only an opportunity to build better but also a large reservoir of employment for qualified workers. Geres specialists will prepare relevant training toolkit for a Training of trainers.

• 16 teachers from TVET will be trained during a 1-day workshop in Dushanbe. *
• 300 students from TVET centres will therefore gain specific skills related to construction energy efficiency and gain a competitive advantage on the job market.
• An additional 150 young jobseekers will also be trained out of the formal TVET system to the same set of skills.

With this double approach, we hope te create a narrative championed by youth leaders and aimed at national level policy makers to illustrate and inform on best practices to be implemented in order to pave the way for change in all Tajikistan.

This publication was produced with the financial support of the European Union. Its contents are the sole responsibility of Geres and do not necessarily reflect the views of the European Union