People Initiative Foundation gears to empower the youth

People Initiative Foundation (PIF), a Non-Profit Organisation, has announced two strategic focus areas and two flagship programmes that will enable it to deliver on its mission of inspiring Africa's Youth to succeed.

It intends to use the Africa Internship Academy, under its youth empowerment focus area, to equip young people with skills to excel in work and life.

In its Social Impact Events focus area, it would run Africa Dialogue, an African thought-leadership platform for discussions on governance and human rights, education, youth unemployment, infrastructure, public health, gender inequality, and more towards helping the Continent to attain Agenda 2063 and the 2030 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs.)

Mr Emmanuel Leslie Addae, Spokesperson for PIF, speaking to the Ghana News Agency on the new strategy, explained that the foundation run a pilot for those initiatives in Ghana in 2016, which was a great success.

“In 2017 and beyond, we look to expand them from Ghana to other countries to ensure that we are nurturing and mentoring the vision, talents and ideas of young people who are positively changing Africa,” he said.

He said the strategy would build on the work done by PIF co-founders, Emmanuel Leslie Addae and Daniel Antwi since 2013, which include organising events and programmes such as TEDxLabone, TEDxAccra, Africa Initiatives Summit and over 60 other events in Accra and beyond.

Mr Addae said the videos of the events, organised by the duo, had over one million views online, streaming live PIF events in over 150 countries, with its last conference, being the sixth top trending hashtag on Twitter worldwide.

He said the Africa Internship Academy was the first youth-employment accelerator programme on the Continent that trained students and graduates to gain entrepreneurial and employable skills for the job market.

The programme, he said, helped candidates to launch their careers by giving them intensive employable skills and also partnering with businesses/institutions to develop or enhance their diversity recruitment and inclusion strategies.

The Africa Dialogue platform brings together children, youth, policy makers, innovative business leaders, accomplished academics, leaders of civil society organisations and other distinguished individuals to foster productive dialogue about Africa.

In its pilot year, PIF worked on projects with partners such as British Council, Netherlands Embassy, SE Ghana, VSO Ghana, YALI West Africa Regional Centre, and British High Commission on; Education, Youth Unemployment, Technology, Communication, Creative Arts, Social Enterprises, and Women in Business, among others.

PIF is a private non-profit organisation, which focuses on promoting and supporting Africa’s youth to achieve their goals in life.

It has dedicated its efforts to creating programmes that will promote cultural diversity while nurturing and mentoring the vision, talents, and ideas of young people who are positively changing Africa.