UN-Habitat Urban Impact Podcast - The Youth Build Somalia [Ep 1] by UN-Habitat worldwide

NAIROBI, 15 July 2019 – Project Rajo, a UN-Habitat construction and life skills training project that has trained young Somali women and men has been written about and photographed. Now this story has been turned into a podcast.
Rajo means hope, and the podcast is a refreshingly optimistic insight into the potential and ambition of the youth of this war-afflicted country. It’s a lesser-known narrative – this story is one of a country rebuilding.
Project Rajo was launched in November 2018 in three Somali cities: Mogadishu, Garowe and Kismayo, to provide youth with construction, entrepreneurship, ICT and life skills training. And despite just 11 per cent of the construction workforce in Somalia being women, half of the participants in the workshop were women.
UN Habitat’s Youth and Livelihood Unit is one of the longest standing UN Youth programs in the UN system. For over 18 years it has been doing youth development work in 172 cities and 75 countries around the world.
Douglas Ragan, who leads this unit emphasized the longevity of this project, “Our team on the ground worked with local partners, and to ensure knowledge transfer and sustainability, Project Rajo partnered with state and federal governments, to develop a construction training manual so that future administrations and future participants can benefit from the project.”
Project Rajo is a component of the Somali Strengthening Institutions for Public Works Project. The project is funded by the African Development Bank and it is implemented by UNOPS and UN-Habitat Somalia Programme in collaboration with the Youth and Livelihoods Unit. It is implemented in coordination with the Ministry of Public Works, Housing and Reconstruction at the federal and regional levels in Somalia.

Produced and co-presented by Sharmaarke Abdullahi & Maxine Betteridge-Moes for UN Habitat’s Youth and Livelihood Unit.