What is the Youth Career Initiative?

The Youth Career Initiative (YCI) is a six-month education programme that provides disadvantaged young people with life and work skills. The purpose is to empower young participants to make informed career choices and realise the options available to them, enabling them to improve their employability and enhance their long-term social and economic opportunities.

Each country programme is tailored to suit the local needs of its young people – YCI is used as a tool to tackle or prevent issues such as youth unemployment, social exclusion, poverty, and exploitation.

Target Group

Eligible candidates are typically aged between 18-21 years-old, have recently finished high school, are able to make a full-time commitment to the programme, and are considered to be at-risk of exploitation.

Suitable participants should also be able to show a willingness to learn and a desire for self-development but have no other means to improve their lives; this means that they have limited or no opportunities to find decent, legitimate employment or continue in further education.

Methodology

The programme is designed to be delivered as part of the regular, day-to-day operations of a full-service hotel, since it is built on the back of existing training and development courses the hotels regularly offer to their staff, and it is supplemented with external courses.

Each programme provides over 750 training hours through a combination of theoretical and practical instruction, including mentoring in life and work skills, with most of the teaching coming from senior managers and highly experienced associates from the hotels.