This is a project summary report of PAJE-Nièta – a program which aimed to empower 10,000 rural out-of-school Malian youth, both males and females, to actively improve their lives. Participants were between the ages of 14 and 25 years and had never been to school or had dropped out in the early grades. The project’s main activities included the following:
• Provided youth with basic education, entrepreneurship training, and technical training in agro-pastoral and service industries
• Trained volunteers to deliver basic education and entrepreneurship courses and to accompany program youth on their path to becoming entrepreneurs
• Trained youth to use mobile technology to access basic education lessons via Stepping Stone, an application developed by EDC
• Trained youth to establish savings and internal lending groups to support both business and social loans
• Strengthened the organizational capacities of existing youth associations to manage and implement project activities