Taking youth empowerment to the next level

Mariselle Stofberg



UPSHIFT is a youth social innovation and entrepreneurship programme introduced by the United Nations Children’s Fund (Unicef), which is designed to build skills and create opportunities for young people.

“It is an innovative Unicef approach which accords an opportunity to support youth and adolescents to become a force for positive social and economic change, contributing to a competitive labour force, sustained economic growth, improved governance and vibrant civil societies,” says Bravo Linosi, the Unicef adolescent development specialist.

Linosi says UPSHIFT combines some of the leading approaches to youth and adolescent development, social innovation and entrepreneurship to empower marginalised youth and adolescents to become social innovators and entrepreneurs.

“Using cutting-edge experiential learning techniques, UPSHIFT teaches youth and adolescents how to understand community challenges and design and build impactful solutions in the form of products and services.”

UPSHIFT introduces human-centred design in social innovation and enterprise while complementing existing programmes and leveraging on the current network of youth and business ecosystems.

This is done in order to lead the change in spurring innovation, acquisition of 21st-century skills, increasing access to non-collateral financing and coaching and mentoring for young people in and outside formal education systems.

“In doing so, UPSHIFT helps develop resilience in a dual sense: that of children and adolescents directly taking part in the programme and those of communities they belong to,” Linosi says.

The UPSHIFT model was piloted in the Khomas Region in February this year, with planned expansion to other regions in Namibia in 2022. Physically Active Youth (PAY), a local non-governmental organisation, is the Unicef implementing partner for UPSHIFT Namibia during the piloting stage.

The model has been implemented through strategic partnerships with government, CSOs and the private sector.

“Government, through the ministry of sport, youth and national service and in particular Emma Kantema-Gaomas, the deputy minister of sport, youth and national service, has been very instrumental at the start of implementation of the programme and have continued to provide strategic support to reach more youth and young people,” Linosi says.

From the private sector, Unicef has been supported by MTC and B2Gold through them providing an enabling environment for UPSHIFT through the MTC Innovation Centre and the B2Gold Education Centre.

Training of Trainers’ Workshop

Unicef supported a Training of Trainers’ Workshop which was conducted by PAY as an implementing partner. The two-month workshop was conducted between February and March. The trained trainers were drawn from organisations working with young people and Linosi added that they will be supporting the national scale of the UPSHIFT model beyond 2021.

Social innovation workshops

Through Unicef’s technical and financial support, PAY scouted about 76 young people from different youth organisations and communities in Khomas for participation in the UPSHIFT programme. Upon review of the 75 individual youth’s profiles, 55 of them were selected for the next phase, upon which they participated in social innovation workshops and bootcamps facilitated by PAY.

The young people who participated in UPSHIFT workshops and bootcamps received extensive support, mentoring and coaching and were presented with opportunities to submit proposals for innovations, products, services and ideas/concepts.

“The entire process was done using the human-centred design which is about building empathy with the people you’re designing for; generating tons of ideas; building a bunch of prototypes; sharing what you’ve made with the people you’re designing for; and eventually putting your innovative new solution out in the world,” Linosi says.

UPSHIFT Virtual Pitching Event

On 31 July, UPSHIFT hosted a virtual pitching event where 31 UPSHIFters presented their proposals for innovations, products, services and ideas/concepts to an audience of stakeholders and donors.

During her keynote address, Kantema said that UPSHIFT epitomises the principles and aspirations of NDP5 and more broadly the SDGs in creating opportunities for young people. She expressed her hope that the UPSHIFT pilot will be a success as the government would like to see the model expand to other regions in Namibia.

Delivering the opening remarks on behalf of Rachel Odede, the Unicef Namibia country representative, Kena Motlhoiwa emphasised Unicef’s UPSHIFT mandate which hopes to promote the learning to earning concept through supporting the most vulnerable adolescents and young people.

The pitching event provided an opportunity for UPSHIFTers to get constructive feedback and guidance on their proposals and stand an opportunity to receive seed funding to start their own social innovations/businesses. These businesses will benefit from continued mentoring, coaching and exposure to the industry through the UPSHIFT ecosystem before a final pitching, product, idea/ service exhibition event slated for October 2021.

“I really want to appreciate UPSHIFT for helping me gain confidence in myself and helping me believe in a different future for me and my community,” said 16-year-old Martha, an UPSHIFT participant.

Another participant, Kingston Link (19), is positive that the UPSHIFT model has the potential of creating lasting change in the community. “UPSHIFT is the future and it will change many lives as it has already changed mine.”