ANÁLISIS Y DIAGNOSTICO DEL EQUIPAMIENTO URBANO

The beneficiaries- Young people aged between 16 and 30 from disadvantaged backgrounds.

The impact

In the last ten years REACH has educated over 16,000 young people between the ages of 16 and 30. More than 80% of those graduates have been placed in stable employment, earning almost 20% more than the national minimum wage.

In 2018 1000 young people were trained with 93% successfully graduating. 87% of graduates got a job with an average salary of $210 a month. 50% receive a promotion or salary increase in their first working year.

50% were girls.

81% reported an improvement in their life quality, reflecting REACH’s goals of social impact by empowering youth and bringing positive changes to their lives.

4 social enterprises have been established to ensure sustainability.

CHALLENGES & PROSPECTS

There is a need to continue to ensure the training matches that of the skills required by Vietnamese business requiring constant adjustments to curriculum. Helping graduates find jobs with good working conditions in the workforce, and the negotiations this involves with employers by developing relations, is an ongoing challenge. These relationships are valuable to inform the curriculum to keep it relevant to business needs. The technology sector is growing rapidly and REACH needs to ensure they are training their graduates in the right focus areas to offer the best opportunities available.

There is also need to review and adjust training curriculum and styles to suit youth from the most marginalised and disadvantaged backgrounds, ensuring they have the support to be able to graduate from their chosen course. Recently REACH have introduced trafficked students from Blue Dragon to our International Hotel program, YCI, which affords additional support. Programs with the visually and hearing impaired are being explored and developed in 2019.

A new set of challenges have developed with the starting up of new social enterprise businesses. REACH is a training organisation and staff have minimal experience at these hopefully money- making entities. New skills and additional staff will be needed to ensure the sustainability and success of the Social Enterprises.

LOOKING AHEAD

In the coming years, REACH aims to become the best training and employment service provider in Viet Nam for disadvantaged youth accredited internationally and nationally.

In order to achieve this goal, there have been many priorities set. Strengthening management and governance to achieve sustainable growth, maintaining and improving on program quality, and having better policies to ensure stronger performance. As well as this, building more motivated, effective and qualified staff by reviewing HR policies and systems and conducting intensive capacity building activities.

Many opportunities still exist for REACH. A gap remains in Viet Nam between the number of skilled

workers available to work in growth sectors such as hospitality, sales & marketing and technology. Viet Nam is fast catching up with other modern technological societies and this presents further opportunities to develop new training programs to build skills in those areas.

Disadvantaged youth, including those with physical disabilities like vision and hearing impairment, need also be offered the chance to improve their lives and have the opportunity to work. This is not readily available currently in Viet Nam and REACH is working on addressing the provision of vocational training to these sectors in the next 12 months.

Certification for courses and trainers is part of the Strategic Plan for REACH into 2022. Partnerships are being brokered and there is positive development in this space in 2019.

REACH’s work will never be completed. How this work looks going forward will develop over time but it will always support the vision that ‘all young people in Viet Nam have the opportunities and support they need to reach their full potential’ (REACH Vision).

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Salon Thanh Nguyen

Founding Year: 2011

Sector of Impact: Disability, employment Size of Organisation: 3 staff & 6 trainees Legal Structure: Joint Stock Company

SDG’s: [1] No poverty, [8] Decent work & economic growth, [10] Reduced inequalities

INTRODUCTION

Thanh Nguyen Hair Salon was established in Hanoi in 2011 by Thanh Nguyen. The Salon and the training school are fully run and operated by people who are deaf.

Viet Nam has over 1 million citizens who are deaf and hearing impaired. To be deaf in Viet Nam means it is much more difficult to access education compared to hearing students and your chances of finding employment as an adult, limited. At Thanh Nguyen Hair Salon deaf youth are trained as hairdressers and at the end of their training all go on to find jobs in other salons or set up their own business, where they in turn train and employ others who are deaf.

Success to Thanh is that deaf students with limited schooling, most whom had never worked before, leave with a qualification that enables them to find a job or start their own business, have and be able to support their own family and enjoy a future as productive members of society.

THE STORY OF THANH NGUYEN HAIR SALON